Butterfly Wings
by Farla
Summary: KH1. At the end of the second day, Riku points out something falling from the sky. What might happen, really, if a player from our world fell in at the start of the journey? Could they change anything? Would they want to? Sora will find out.
1. The Second Day

So. I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, and this is it.

There are a ton of stories where a character/self insert fall into their game and have wacky adventures. There are even a bunch that try to go the realistic route, which generally involves an emphasis on how much it'd suck to actually be there. I felt like doing something different than either, so here we are.

All reviews welcome, including ones that simply tell me how much I've failed at something. Sometimes those are the most useful of all, right? I've done my best to be faithful to the games, including playing through them at the same time as I write, but this isn't an area I have a lot of practice with, so if there's anything wrong, just tell me.

* * *

_Butterfly Wings_

They'd finally finished preparations for the raft, and Sora wasn't thinking about his dream any longer, not with the excitement of leaving and the twisting confusion over Kairi's words - _let's take the raft and go – just the two of us!_

Riku was waiting further up beyond the pier. Sora broke into a jog to catch up with him. The sun was setting and they started heading home.

It was Riku who noticed – it was always Riku who saw something first. "Hey," he said, pointing up into the sky. "Look."

Sora tried to follow the gesture back up to the clouds. After a second of searching his eyes caught on something small and dark with the setting sun behind it, high up and falling.

Beside him Kairi whispered, "What is that? It doesn't look like a bird."

Blueish comets streaked across the darkening sky. The falling shape was closer now. It resolved itself suddenly into a person, and Sora could only gape upwards, his dream from yesterday vivid in his mind. He'd been falling and then he'd seen himself falling toward himself and then he was falling again -

"Hey, come on!" someone shouted. Sora was jerked out of his trance by Riku grabbing his arm and pulling him across the beach back toward the cove, where the figure seemed to be headed.

Sora half-shook his head to clear it and ran along with his friends. Riku reached the door first and pulled it open, so Sora, right behind, ended up first through it.

The figure had fallen in the water just beyond the beach and was laying there. Sora ran up to the edge and then froze as the tide pulled back. For a second he expected the dark reddish water to keep going until it drew itself up in a massive wave, and by the time he registered that it was heading in again, just the normal lapping motion, Riku had already stepped into the water and was offering his hand to the boy, who was sitting up and looking confused.

When he saw Riku, his eyes widened and his expression became almost worshipful. "Riku!" he squealed in an oddly high voice, ignoring the offered hand and instead jumping up to hug the boy. The two of them toppled over again as Riku failed to keep his balance under the sudden weight, something that didn't seem to upset the boy, who simply shouted, "Oh my god, Riku!"

The boy, Sora noted with a sense of confusion, seemed to be wearing an outfit identical to his own. And knew Riku.

"Um," he said, stepping forward as Riku managed to stand up again, half-dragging the boy upright too in the process. Before he could ask anything the boy turned to him, expression lighting up further, if that were possible.

"Sora!" he shouted, as if they were long-lost friends. "I can't believe this! I'm really here!"

"You know him?" Kairi asked, sounding as confused as Sora felt.

The boy's eyes narrowed into a glare, looking almost hateful. Sora recoiled as the boy said, "Oh, it's _you_," in a disgusted tone.

"No, I've never seen him before," said Riku, now sounding put-off. He disentangled himself from the boy.

"Of course you haven't, but I know – wait, him?" said the boy. "I'm a girl."

Riku gave him an appraising look. "Are you sure?"

The boy stared at them in bafflement, then looked down. His expression changed to horror. "What? This can't-" He started tugging his shirt off, fingers fumbling as if the garment was unfamiliar to him. After a second he pulled it half over his head.

Riku flushed and looked away. A second late, Sora realized what he was seeing and did the same, feeling embarrassed.

"Oh, thank god," said the very much a girl, in the tones of someone who just escaped some horrible fate. "As cool as ya-"

"Um, your shirt," Kairi said.

The girl went silent, then made a horrified squeak, tugging her clothing back on. Sora risked a glance at her again when the rustling stopped, hoping she was dressed. He had just enough time to register that she was again properly covered, if a bit in disarray, when she slapped him in the face hard enough to almost knock him off his feet.

"How dare you see me like that you pervert!" she screamed.

"But I-" Sora protested.

Riku took a step forward, radiating anger. "What the hell is your problem?" he demanded.

The girl's anger seemed to evaporate and she stared at Riku looking hurt and upset, as if she didn't understand why he would be mad at her.

There was a tense moment of silence before Sora, rubbing his stinging cheek, asked, "How did you get here?"

She brightened again. "I was playing the video game. I'd just started a new game and then poof! I was sucked into the TV and falling!"

She seemed really happy about that, Sora thought. Maybe it was normal where she was.

"You mean, you're from another world?" Kairi asked, her voice painfully hopeful. "And you remember it?"

The girl didn't seem to hear. She was turning around and saw the raft behind her. "Oh my god!" she squealed again. "That's the Soriku!"

So Riku? Sora wondered in bafflement.

"No, that's the Highwind." Riku sounded just as confused.

"Aw, Sora, you didn't win?" she said. Sora had no idea what that had to do with naming the ship after Riku.

Riku opened his mouth as if to say something similar, but then shut it again and shook his head slightly. "Let's focus. Um, girl-"

"I'm Layla – I mean I'm Kimimela."

Riku ignored that and said, "How did you get here?"

"I told you, I was playing Kingdom Hearts and I got sucked in!"

"You remember, Kairi?" Riku asked, turning toward her.

Kairi was biting her lip in concentration. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "Nothing."

"Well, duh. It's not the same thing at all."

"You know what happened to Kairi?"

The girl scowled. "Kairi Kairi Kairi. Who cares about that bitch? She's useless!"

Riku's face darkened. He started to step toward her, but Kairi grabbed his arm. "Don't. It's okay. I think she's confused."

"I'm not confused you-" The girl caught Riku's expression finally and shut up. Then she threw her arms around Riku's chest again and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shirt.

Over her head, Riku sent Sora and Kairi a baffled look.

"We'll need to tell Dad," Kairi said after a moment of thought. "He'll know what to do."

"Yeah, the mayor." Riku nodded in agreement a second before the girl pulled back.

"Nonono I've got to stay with you guys I don't want to get separated, I mean, who knows what'd happen when the heartless show up? I could end up in Halloween Town or something. Halloween Town!"

"It's okay," comforted Kairi. "He's very nice and you don't have to worry about him sending you away or anything like that."

The girl scowled blackly at Kairi in response to this, then turned back to Riku. "When are you guys leaving?" she demanded.

"What are you talking about?" replied Sora.

"In the raft," she said. "Obviously. Are you planning on leaving tomorrow?"

Riku, as always, took charge. "No," he said immediately. Sora understood. They could put off something like the raft for a while, now that something huge like this had happened.

"Well..." the girl said hesitantly, "I guess that'd be okay."

"We can't bring her to the mayor tonight, though," Sora said. Better to bother people with this in the morning, and the girl seemed to out of it, anyway. "She can come home with me. I'll explain to Mom."

"Can't I go with Riku?" the girl whined.

"No," Riku said instantly, looking faintly desperate. "No. Sorry."

The girl brightened again. Sora barely had time to register it before she'd tackled him in a hug, nearly sending him to the ground. She was sopping wet from the water and damp strands of her black hair tickled against his throat. "I like Sora too," she said, pulling her face back a bit. "This is cool.

Sora hoped she'd let go of him soon. It was weird, the way she was so familiar, like suddenly gaining a twin sister, but he felt awkward about pushing her away too. After what felt like forever, her grip loosened, and Sora took the chance to pry her off. "We should get going, right guys?"

"Yeah. Come on. It'll be hard enough getting back with an extra person," Riku said. He started back along the beach.

The girl was quiet until they reached the pier. "_Oh_," she said, as if a great mystery had been resolved, when she saw the little wooden boats they used to travel from the small island to back home. They were, barely, big enough for two people, but really made to carry one. Sora settled down as carefully as he could into his boat, the girl holding from behind.

"I never saw this before," she whispered as they left.

"What do you mean?" Sora asked. "The ocean?"

"No," the girl said, as if it was a stupid suggestion. Then she said, "The ways between places," as if that was somehow a more reasonable guess.

She didn't say anything more for the short trip back to the town. Even with an extra passenger making things awkward, it only took around ten minutes to get back. The boats weren't even strictly necessary – Sora and the other kids had swum the distance plenty of times – but they made things a lot easier, and ever since they'd made them two years ago, they'd used them almost every time.

When they landed, Riku and Kairi had already tied up their boats, and Sora hurried to do the same.

The girl was standing staring at the sky. "Huh," she said. "You can see way more stars. I guess there's light pollution or something at Traverse."

"Or something," Riku repeated, humoring her.

"Our homes are this way," Sora told the girl, and they started off.

She was quiet for the first half of the walk up. She looked around at everything, stumbling a number of times because she wasn't watching the actual path. She touched things as they passed and jumped at apparently random intervals.

Not long after they split up with Kairi and Riku, the girl said, "Hey, I was wondering. Which did you pick?"

"Huh?" Sora wondered if this was another nonsense thing, like with the raft.

"You know, the sword, shield and staff? I was assuming it'd be like in my game, but since things are different..."

"The dream?" He hadn't been able to forget it. It was still so vivid. The events had been dreamlike and disconnected, but it had seemed utterly real at the same time.

The girl just said, "Yeah," casually.

"I..." Sora remembered standing on the bottom of the air, in water that turned to air, on ground that changed to white doves and left behind a giant stained glass portrait of someone he didn't recognize, like the window of a church. The three choices hovering suspended in the air and a voice whispering softly from nowhere. "The shield. I picked the shield, and – I gave up the sword." He'd gone to the sword first, reaching out without thinking, like it had been the same as his wooden toy, and as his hand almost touched it words had written themselves in his mind.

"You picked the shield and gave up the sword?" the girl shrieked. "I can't believe you. Who_ does_that? I know some people pick the staff since you get an extra empea, and stuff, but everybody knows to ditch the shield. I_always_ pick the sword and get rid of the shield. What's wrong with you?"

_The power of the warrior,_ had whispered into his mind. _Invincible courage. _And then, _A sword of terrible destruction._  
He'd recoiled, yanking his hand back as if burned. He remembered he'd stepped away and then just stood there for several moments, staring at what he'd so automatically reached for first. Then, more tentatively, he'd held his hand out toward the next one, a staff. _The power of the mystic. Inner strength. A staff of wonder and ruin._

That hadn't been - as bad, but the ominous note echoed in his mind. Better that than the sword, but there was something faintly horrible about either choice.

He'd turned and reached for the shield. _The power of the guardian. Kindness to aid friends. A shield to repel all._

The second choice hadn't been hard at all. He'd touched the sword and whispered "yes" with the cold metal under his fingertips, all hesitation gone.

"I wanted to protect my friends," he said. "Not destroy everything. Not anything."

He could just make out her rolling her eyes in the dim light. "Isn't fighting off monsters about being strong and able to kill them before they can hurt anybody? Besides, don't you want to beat Riku?"

Riku, who was the best, the strongest and fastest, the one who always had some new idea, a new project for everyone, who decided everything. Who he'd never, ever win against. "N-no," Sora stammered, shocked and almost disgusted. "He's my _best friend_."

"Guess it should really be called Rikora then," the girl said, sounding faintly disapproving.

"What?"

"The raft," she said, as if this were some kind of explanation.


	2. Departure

His mother had seemed surprised when he showed up with a black haired doppleganger in tow, but agreed she could stay the night without further comment, agreeing to bring her to the mayor the next morning.

They'd headed up to his room. Sora had been embarrassed by the mess, but the girl didn't seem to even notice. She looked thrilled, turning around slowly.

"I can see the whole thing!" she said to herself, sounding pleased by this. "I'm really here!"

She was _weird_, Sora thought. He flopped backward onto his bed, then jerked upright against at the sound of a thundercrack. Looking out his open window he could see more lightning bolts flashing across the sky, the light reflecting off what looked like a black stormcloud over the island they'd just left.

"Oh no, the raft!" Without a second thought Sora grabbed the windowsill with one hand and vaulted out.

"But you said you weren't leaving yet!"

Sora looked up from the ground to see the girl clambering out the window after him. She jumped to the slanted first story roof, like he had, but unlike him, she didn't then jump to the ground. Instead she wobbled, tried to catch her balance, failed, then fell over the edge.

He lunged, just managing to catch her before she hit the street face-first. The force knocked him backward hard.

"Ow," the girl said thoughtfully. Then, rather than 'Thank you' or 'Sorry' or anything else a sane person would say, "You told me you weren't leaving yet!"

"I'm not! I'm just going to make sure the raft's safe!" He stood up. "I don't have time to argue!"

He started running to the beach where the boats were. The girl ran after him.

"But this isn't supposed to happen yet!" she argued. "Not until the raft's finished!"

"The raft is finished!" he shouted back, feeling more and more frustrated. "But then you showed up so we weren't going to leave!"

At the beach, the boats were gone. After a second of looking about to see if they were anywhere near, Sora plunged into the water and started swimming.

The water had looked calm, but after he swam out a short distance he found himself being swept out. He panicked, but within a minute he found himself nearly at the island with the raft rather than swept out to sea.

He reached the pier. "Riku's boat. And Kairi's!" he gasped. They lived closer than he did. They must have headed down as well before him.

The girl climbed up next to him. Then black monsters started to ooze out of the ground.

He stumbled back, terrified, and the girl at his left shouted, "All right! Finally!" and took off, jumping off the pier to run wildly across the beach.

Sora didn't have time to consider chasing her. The twitching black things were creeping closer. One skittered toward him and he stumbled backwards, falling. His hand landed on the hilt of the wooden sword. He swung at another monster as it jumped and the toy passed through it, like it was made of mist. Then it hit him, horribly solid, with icy claws and teeth digging into his chest. The other two were crouching and leaping now, and he kept swinging and nothing, it was like they were ghosts. They were gathering around him, clawing him, they were going to drag him back down into the dark like his dream, and he ran.

New ones popped up under his feet but when he spun, expecting one about to leap for his back, he saw old ones melting away behind him. And so he turned and ran again as the new bunch twitched and shuddered and jumped for him, all teeth and claws and dead yellow eyes.

This was what the girl had done, he realized. They couldn't hurt him as long as he kept running, they were just slightly too slow pulling themselves from the ground. He felt relieved by this for a few seconds, then realized he couldn't run forever and they were everywhere, radiating cold malevolence. He should try to go back. Tell the adults, they'd know what to do.

But Riku – Kairi – they were still here. Kairi wasn't the best running and Riku...Riku wouldn't run.

Riku – he'd have found Kairi. They'd be together. Sora paused second, looking around. There – on the small island with the paopu fruit tree, he thought he could make someone out through the gloom. One of the monsters struck his leg and he staggered, then recovered and started running.

He ran up the ramp from the beach, jumping onto the shack's roof to reach the landing. There was Riku! He sprinted across the bridge.

Above him, there was something dark swirling in the sky, a small ball of red in the center growing with every second. But Riku was standing there calmly, and alone, facing toward the ocean.

"Where's Kairi? I thought she was with you!"

"The door has opened..."

"What?"

Riku started to turn to him. "The door has opened, Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!" Above him, the red pulsed and expanded.

"What are you talking about? We've gotta find Kairi!" Sora yelled, feeling growingly desperate.

"Kairi's coming with us!" he yelled back, then, "Once we step through, we might not be able to come back. We may never see our parents again. There's no turning back. But this may be our only chance. We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!" he shouted.

He held out his hand.

"Riku..."

Darkness bloomed under his feet, whirling around him and climbing higher and higher. But Riku just stood there calmly with his arm outstretched as the shadows grew around him. Like in the dream.

Sora bolted toward him, only for more darkness to appear on the ground under him. He stopped for a instant, startled, then grabbed, too late, for Riku's hand, the darkness wrapping around and holding him in place. Sora strained, trying to reach, his hand flailing inches away from the Riku's fingers, closing the gap laboriously with each passing second. He could almost touch -

Then the shadows pulled him back into itself, closing over and turning everything to black.

And then the darkness was gone and the air glittered around him, and he found himself holding a huge, ornate metal key. Riku was gone, leaving him standing alone on the small island, and something whispered, "Keyblade."

Another of the shadow things appeared. It spread its claws and jumped for him. Sora swung at it with a kind of fury from panic and confusion, and this time the blow connected. The shadow thing reeled backwards, seeming stunned.

Sora hit it over and over and over again, beating it in a blind frenzy until it dissipated into black insubstantial goo. Then he stopped, panting from exertion and adrenaline.

Kairi...

He had to find her. She hadn't been with Riku. He'd – Riku was gone, he had to find Kairi before she disappeared as well! Before she was swallowed up by darkness.

The darkness. _The door was not yet open._

The secret place! What if Kairi had gone there, to escape the monsters?

He sprinted across the bridge again, swinging the key in his hand like a sword. The shadows staggered back, some of them bursting apart under the force of his blows. He saw another figure out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked it was that girl, Kimi-something, and she sounded like she was laughing of all things. He turned away and headed for the secret place.

The shadow monsters seemed even more numerous. Three popped up as he reached the entrance, covered now by a white door (_the door is open now_) of the secret place. He smashed one aside and dove in.

He was expecting more of them inside, but the narrow path was empty.

Kairi was safe here, then. She must be. He ran to the center chamber.

"Kairi!" he shouted in relief, seeing her standing on the other side of the chamber, in front of the closed door.

She started to turn and Sora realized something was wrong. Their eyes met. "So...ra," she said weakly, reaching toward him as the door behind her exploded open, spewing darkness. Kairi was tossed into the air, flying toward Sora and seeming to fade away even as she reached him. Sora held out his arms to grab her and she passed through him like a ghost. He spun, expecting to see her behind him, but she had vanished. The darkness rolled over him.

Then everything started to vanish.

For a second, the secret place seemed to be collapsing in even as it dissolved. When it cleared, Sora found himself flat on the ground staring over the edge into emptiness.

The island was – gone. He was standing on a patch of beach floating in nothing, watching the sand drain away over the edge. Smaller chunks were visible around it, also disintegrating. The only thing that seemed to remain was the wind, whipping about so powerfully Sora could barely move near the edges. And beyond was...there wasn't anything else Sora could see, just a scattered handful of chunks from the island, the wind, and the blood red hole in the sky above.

And there was a monstrous thing, standing there so huge it covered part of the sky, with a hole in its chest in the shape of a heart. It lumbered toward him, its feet tiny twisted stumps that shouldn't have been able to support it.

"What are you doing? Hurry up and fight Darkside!" shouted the girl.

He realized she was there too, sheltering by the stump of a broken tree. She was the only one left, not Riku or Kairi or his parents or anyone else.

Darkness swirled around the monster's fist. It punched down, hitting Sora hard enough to send agonizing jolts through his body that left him unable to move for an instant. A pool of darkness flowed out where it touched the ground, the same thick smothering stuff that had taken Riku and almost-but-not taken him.

Yellow eyes appeared within it, pulling themselves out of the shadow.

"Come on, fight!" yelled the girl, and panicking, he swung the key, hitting the monster's wrist.

This was horribly familiar somehow, and bits of his dream came rushing back again, strange impossible battles set atop stained glass. He felt cold teeth sink into his side as the giant pulled its hand back, and he hit the smaller thing away frantically. But I didn't pick this, he thought desperately as the shadow monsters reached for him, remembering the feel of the shield in his hand, the safety he'd felt behind it, blocking their attacks and pushing them away. I just wanted to protect my friends. I didn't want this.

He'd reached for the sword first. But he hadn't taken it! He'd thrown it away!

It hadn't mattered. He'd tried to pick right, and the monsters appeared. He beat them and more came, and he beat those only to be swallowed by the darkness he thought he'd been fighting, and he escaped the darkness only to find his shadow held the worst of all.

He'd beaten the shadow only to be engulfed by the darkness a second time, and he woke up and it all happened again, this time taking his friends. He'd tried to pick the shield and he'd lost them anyway.

The redness swirling above had grown huge and swelled further with every pulse. It looked like the end of the world.

The giant monster reached down again. Sora backed away, but it didn't seem to be trying to hit him, and no new darkness appeared. The girl was screaming something, but he couldn't hear her over the wind. The giant monster leaned over. Sora watched as its other arm sank into the ground to the shoulder, until its head was flat against the surface. Then he watched as it pulled back. When its hand was exposed again, it was holding something.

It looked like a swirling ball of light, a bright pinprick at the very center and darkening to shades of deep red almost immediately beyond. As Sora watched, the outer edge darkened further, to purple and then black, the darkness spreading like corruption into the whole of the sphere. The giant monster strained, its other hand holding its wrist, to slowly pull the sphere upward. After a few seconds, the ball began to rise. The monster lifted it to the sky, and it was sucked into the dark red pulsing sphere above.

It seemed to react, glowing brightly and splitting off bits as it was absorbed. Sora watched the smaller balls float downward, now the size of a balloon. They were mostly a translucent red mingled with deep purple, and glowed dimly.

One touched him, and he screamed in pain.

The monster punched the ground again, more of the small shadowy things appearing around its hand. Sora hacked desperately at the wrist as the shadow things clawed him and the balls of tainted light burst against him, nearing collapse. _A shield to repel all_...But all he had was the metal key in his hand, and all he could do was try to destroy.

The girl as still shouting. It might have been intended as encouragement, although it sounded more like orders. He couldn't hear her over the wind.

It bellowed and reared back. Then it was kneeling on the ground with its chest thrown out and head back, and there was something he hesitated to call light, but a whiteness mingled with the shadowy purple, streaming out of it into the air.

He ran at the monster, jumping up and slashing at the false light over and over again, and finally stabbing it with all his strength.

The thing lurched upright again, the whiteness gone. The wind was intensifying and as he watched the shadowy monster began to rise into the air, no longer touching the sand. Then it was sucked into the growing redness that had swallowed up the sky. Bits of the ground followed, and Sora realized he hadn't won at all. Everything would be pulled in. The ground itself was turning to darkness around him, and the wind pulling harder.

The girl ran forward at the last second and grabbed his hand, and they were pulled into the devouring sky.


	3. Traverse Town

There was something licking his face.

He opened his eyes to see a bizarre yellow furry thing that bore a passing resemblance to a dog. "What a dream..." he mumbled, dazed. The dog jumped up, its front paws hitting him in the chest and jolting him fully awake. He let out a startled cry. "This isn't a dream!"

Sora stared at the dog, which remained as strange as at first glance, then stood up, looking around. It was still night, so he couldn't have been asleep for that long. He was in a narrow stone alley beside some wooden crates. At one end of the alley was a crumbling wooden barrier with a bunch of torn, faded posters stuck onto it that were written in some other language. On the other, dark buildings rose into the sky, a handful of windows lit. "Oh boy," Sora said quietly to himself, feeling a strong sense of foreboding.

The girl – Kimi-something – was to his left. She made a confused, sleepy sound, followed by one of revulsion. She shoved the yellow dog thing away and shoved herself to her feet at the same time, banging her back against the rock wall. Then she looked around, not seeming at all surprised by the surroundings.

The dog grinned at Sora, tongue lolling out of his mouth and its thin black tail waving wildly.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked it. A talking dog couldn't be any weirder than what had already happened.

The dog bounded off. "Hey!" he called after it, but it was gone.

Sora sighed. He looked up, seeing the stars. There didn't seem to be as many as he was used to. He shook his head. He was probably imagining things, or there might have been some thin clouds blocking the fainter ones.

Since the dog hadn't given him any idea of what to do, he turned to the girl. "Do you know where we are?" She'd looked like she might have recognized the place.

She was staring off in the same direction as the dog had gone with a look full of loathing. "We have to follow that," she said, sounding intensely annoyed but resigned at the same time. "Well, come on."

Sora followed the girl out of the alley.

Like so many things recently, the dog has disappeared. Beyond the alleyway were stairs leading down to an open square. There were two circles of grass, each with a branching lamppost coming out of the center like a strange tree, each bulb releasing a bright glow. Was this really another world? The girl didn't spare it a glance. She walked around, past the door of a shop marked with blue lanterns on either side, then started jumping next to the building. She grabbed the edge of the roof, dangled for a second, and dropped. She jumped again and dangled.

Baffled, Sora turned to regard the square again. He heard the girl drop to the ground. "Where are we?"

"Oh – Traverse Town," the girl said, sounding a bit annoyed.

He felt like he'd heard name that before. "You know this place?"

Instead of answering, the girl said, "Why can't I get up there?!" She jumped again.

"Could you before?" Sora asked.

"I could in the _game_," she replied. "There are heartless, why aren't there jumps?"

Sora walked to stand beside her. He jumped, grabbing the shingled edge and then flipping in a smooth, automatic motion to land on the rooftop. He reached down and grabbed her hand, pulling her up.

Instead of being grateful he'd helped her get onto the roof, she whined, "Why can _you_ do it?"

"You just need to learn how." Sora remembered his younger self clumsily following after Riku, and added, "And practice. You'll get it. Kairi didn't know how when we met her either."

"I'm not _Kairi_," she spat.

"No, you're not," Sora snapped. "And Kairi probably did know, she just forgot." He jumped off the roof and headed down the steps into the square.

The people down there were weird. There was even a fluffy white stuffed animal walking about, with a bobbing red pompom on an antenna coming from its forehead. The rest were people, but they looked different, somehow, than the people he'd see on the islands, although he couldn't quite articulate what it was. There was a woman with something odd about her, and a man in a strange outfit, a blue vest over a starched white shirt with an odd cut, baggy, shapeless brown pants that ended just below the knees, then oddly neat white socks and tiny black shoes. One boy didn't look too different, and he was about Sora's age, making him the least intimidating of the bunch. Sora headed over to ask what he knew about the place.

"My world was attacked by shadows," he explained. "I got separated from Mom and Dad, and finally came here. That's how everyone gets here, it seems."

Attacked by shadows...was that what caused this? So Kairi and Riku should be here too.

"You don't need to talk to anybody else," the girl interrupted, coming up behind him.

"Huh?" Sora said.

"They don't say anything important."

Something about her phrasing struck him as odd.

The boy he'd been talking to was scowling.

"You've talked to people here before?" Sora asked, trying to make sense of this.

"Yes-"

"I've never seen her before in my life," the boy interrupted angrily.

The girl ignored this. "Come on, let's go."

Sora cast an apologetic glance to the boy. "Well, do you know what we're supposed to do?" he asked her.

The girl thought. "I think they show up when you leave First District..." She looked toward the building right above the plaza's steps, with the blue lights. It had two signs above the door, one reading Jewelry and the other Accessories. "Let's talk to Cid first, though. I mean, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to. Actually, I wonder how…" She looked lost in thought.

"Cid?" Sora repeated, trying to steer the conversation back to what he'd asked.

"From Final Fantasy. He's in charge of that store."

"From Final Fantasy?" Sora repeated. Was that another world?

"Yeah, like Cloud and Wakka and Sephy-kun." Before Sora could ask what Wakka had to do with any of this, the girl continued, "Anyway, I wanna see him. It's a shame we can't get any money until the heartless show up." She grabbed his arm and started to forcibly pull him up the steps.

"I'm going!" Sora protested as she dragged him into the store.

Inside, she let go so abruptly he almost fell back out through the doors. It seemed like an ordinary enough store, with what looked oddly like a folded up ladder against the ceiling, leading nowhere. In the center of the room was a glass case that looked like it was full of jewelry, and another case was against the far wall, and a third, smaller case at the end of the counter with a huge, sparkling white crystal, occasionally swirling with a brilliant flash of yellow light. Standing behind the counter was an adult man wearing what looked like aviation goggles on his forehead. Was that Cid?

"Hey there, how can I..." he started to say, turning. "Aw, it's only some kids."

"I'm not a kid!" Sora retorted. "And the name's Sora!"

"Okay, okay, simmer down. So why the long face, Sora? You lost or something?"

"No! Well, maybe." He glanced toward the girl, who seemed to be ignoring the conversation in favor of staring intently at the what looked like an empty furnace. "Where are we? Traverse Town?"

"Huh?" he said. "Yeah, that's what it's called."

Kimi had been right, then…"So, Gramps, is this another world?" Sora asked, remembering Riku and the raft. "I live on Destiny Islands, do you know them?"

"Don't call me gramps!" the man snapped. "The name's Cid! Anyway...Not sure what you're talking about, but this sure isn't your island."

"Hmm.. Guess I'd better start looking for Riku and Kairi," Sora said, mostly to himself.

"Well good luck with whatever it is you're doing," Cid told him. He pressed his thumb against the side of his nose for a second. "If you ever get into trouble, you come to me. I'll look out for you. Hey, you guys related?" The girl had finished her inspection of the room and sidled up next to Sora.

"No," Sora said. "Well, I mean, I don't think so. That's Kimi…"

"Kimimela!" the girl shouted. "You don't get to give me nicknames!"

"It's a weird name, I can't remember it."

"It is not. Sora's a _girl's name_."

"No it's not!"

"Is so! The girl from Digimon is called Sora." Clearly feeling this non sequitur had won the argument, the girl turned to Cid. "And where's the save point, anyway?"

"The what?"

The girl pointed to what was obviously an empty patch of floor. "The save point," she repeated, as if this were an explanation. At his blank look, she grudgingly elaborated: "You know – green glowy swirly thingy?"

"Most stuff doesn't make it to Traverse Town, I'm afraid. They had something like that on your island?"

"No," Sora said.

The girl stamped her feet in frustration. "Not where I'm from, here in the _game_." She sighed deeply, dropping her head, but she looked more like she was playacting than actually bothered. "Oh well. I used continue most of the time. Except for the damn dragon boss when those dorks kept using all my items each battle."

There really wasn't much you could say to that.

* * *

Anyone have any suggestion on how to handle things like item chests in the story?


	4. Second District

"So, what do you sell here?" Sora asked Cid.

"We don't have any money yet," the girl interrupted. "Oh, but you can sell stuff. What do you have on you?"

Sora obligingly emptied his pockets.

"No potion? You didn't beat Riku at all?"

"Um…" Sora said blankly.

She glanced over it. "I mean, you could sell the hi-potions. Your aychpea is too low for those to be of any use.…Oh, you can sell the Pretty Stone."

"What? No!" Sora snatched it off the floor and repocketed it.

The girl stared at him. "Huh? But it's just vender trash."

"It is not trash!" Sora began gathering up the other items.

"That's what _I_ thought, but it turns out you can't do anything with it." When Sora just glared at her, she sighed. "Well, it's not really worth anything, and we'll have some money once we go into Second District." She snatched the hi-potions before Sora could pick those up.

"You planning on getting a job there?" Cid asked curiously.

The girl looked at him like he'd grown an extra head. "You don't get _jobs_ in this game," she said scathingly. "You fight heartless."

Sora thought he looked like he was about to say something in response, but the girl had already grabbed his arm and was pulling him out the door. "Thanks bye," Sora managed to get out before the door shut.

Outside Cid's shop, Sora saw another door with a sign saying Items over it. "Wait, let's look here," he said, pulling free.

"Can't we just skip all this?" the girl asked. "This is taking forever! I already saw it the first time."

Sora ignored her and headed inside.

There were…ducks. Three baby ducks wearing shirts of different colors. One, in red, was sitting on the counter, and the other two were on the ground.

"Hi!" the one on the counter said. "Looking for items?"

"Hey, make change for this," the girl said, handing over the hi-potions. Sora followed her over to the counter, taking the golden munny.

"So, um, what do you sell?" Sora asked the tiny anthropomorphic duckling.

"They just sell potions and upgraded weapons for your lame party me – hey!" The girl half jumped over the counter, balanced on her stomach. "That's new!" She held out one hand. "Let me see!"

The other two ducklings – Sora thought of them as Blue-shirt and Green-shirt – hopped onto the counter to help. Together, they handed her a sword. The handle was golden and the blade itself looked crystalline, a stark white edged with faint purple that reminded Sora ominously of the light in the chest of his shadow's monster. Destruction…

"Awesome!" Kimi yelled, swinging the blade. "Sora, pay for it!"

Sora's eyes darted between the ducklings and the blade. "Are you-"

"Come on, you know everyone only gets one weapon, so this is obviously mine. Not like you can give that stupid duck a shield, even though he dies all the time."

He thought again of Kairi putting her hand on Riku's arm. And she was the only one left now. "How much?" he asked.

"100 munny."

Sora blanched. That was almost all the munny they had, and enough to buy plenty of potions. He sighed, but handed the munny over. "And one potion, please," he added.

"Okay, let's go!" the girl chirped, turning to leave.

"Thanks, bye," he said to the tiny ducks, following her out.

"Come again," they called in unison.

"Come on, this is boring," said the girl, grabbing him again and not letting go. She pulled him around the shop and up the steps behind it. Sora noticed a large man standing by the edge overlooking the alley behind the shop where he'd woken up in. Sora wanted to stop – maybe he'd seen them appear. Maybe he'd seen Kairi and Riku… - but the girl just pulled harder. Sora went along, thinking he'd come back once whatever she wanted was done. Finally, she dragged him up to a closed gate make up of two huge wooden doors. She let go of him and stepped forward, pushing the doors with either hand. They were clearly heavy and it took a second or two for them to begin moving, but then they swung open.

There was someone running toward them, a man wearing odd, almost old-fashioned clothing. He tripped and fell, turning as he did if there was something behind him, even though there was nothing there. Sora watched as bright light burst from his chest and glowing red heart floated up, glittering but with darkening edges as it spun slowly in the air for a second. Then darkness exploded around the edges of the body and devoured it as the heart slid away, sucked into another swirl of darkness forming in midair. The swirl had a too-white center edged with purple that gave way to true darkness, and Sora couldn't tell how large it was or where the darkness gave way to the night itself. The heart wobbled a bit in the air from side to side before being pulled into the bright center, and for a second the white expanded around the heart and it looked like the light was overwhelming the darkness. Then it collapsed on itself into a ball of pure blackness, and a – thing popped out, looking like a grotesque ragdoll wearing a battered, discarded knight's helmet, the metal's jiggling sounding like a rattlesnake's warning. It jumped into the air, its movements boneless and wrong, curled into a ball, turning back into darkness. Then they were all gone – the man, the heart, the darkness, all in the space of an instant.

Then the monsters came.

When the monsters stopped and the frantic life or death fight stopped with them, Sora realized Kimi was laughing.

Maybe she heard him not laughing, just as clearly as he heard her, because she turned to him at the same moment, grinning.

It should have been like Riku's grin, looking down at Sora doubled over and breathless after losing another race. Like Wakka's after he managed to peg someone with his ball hard enough to send them face-first into the sand, or Tidus after winning a wooden-sword fight, or Selphie as she twirled her jump-rope while his face and arms stung.

What it was was almost Kairi's grin when she'd managed somehow to skip a stone once despite the ocean waves, or climbed a tree to the top to watch the seagulls, or ran off the pier to crash into the water.

Sora fumbled for words to say what was wrong about this, and Kimi said, "Alright! Let's go to the Gizmo Shop, that's my favorite place!" She took off, racing across the district without hesitation or a glance back as monsters blossomed from the ground, as if she were utterly certain he would follow.

For a heartbeat he imagined staying where he was. Then, horrified, he bolted after her.

_Just kidding,_ Kairi's voice whispered with a nervous giggle. _Just kidding._

He caught up with her on the other end of the square as she slashed and cut at the shadows. He struck one and watched it fly away and crumple to the ground against the wall, and he didn't even hesitate, leaping after it and driving the metal key through its body while it lay stunned and helpless, watching it explode under the blow. He felt something behind him and spun just into time to hit another creeping up on him. Then they were all gone, but Sora barely had time to realize this before Kimi was halfway through the doors of the building next to them.

Inside was a nightmare. The place was brightly lit, the brightest Sora had seen since they arrived, covered garnish colors like a toy store and made up of rounded edges that radiated harmlessness like toys for small children. There was one shadow thing that slid up from the colorful, cheery floor. Sora smashed apart, and then they were everywhere. They swarmed around Sora, clawing and biting him with a touch like ice and despair, slamming him into the hard walls and gears under their weight. And when he'd finally beaten – killed he was killing them – new ones rose up from the floor. And then more. And somehow it was all the worse that the place looked so safe and harmless, almost obscene that this was happening there.

Sora didn't realize when it was over. He just stood there, looking around for the next ones, turning and turning and feeling a sick certainty they were about to come at him from behind, could almost feel the frozen claws digging into his back, and he realized he was shaking, from fear or injury or exhaustion or just the cold misery the things oozed into the air.

"The game would have been so much better if the whole thing was like that!" Kimi enthused. "Awesome awesome awesome!" Sora barely heard her.

It took him a second to realized she'd walked over and grabbed his arm again. "We might as well go now. We've cleared this area." She didn't look like she'd even been scratched.

Numbly, Sora followed her out.

"Hm." She bit her lip thoughtfully. "How do you get to the boss fight…?"

Sora took out a potion and drank it. The liquid burned down his throat and then spread outward all at once, like a tuft of grass catching fire in a single burst. His injuries flashed cold and burning hot at the same time. Then it, and his injuries, were gone.

"Right!" the girl said finally. "You've got to fight Leon!"

"I don't want to fight anyone," Sora said reflexively.

"Okay. Follow me." She started back toward the first district. Sora followed, bracing himself for more shadow monsters, but no more appeared. By the time they reached the doors, Sora was feeling slightly less nervous.

Kimi shoved the doors open and they stepped through.

Shadows appeared before them, sliding over the stones toward them as the monsters pulled themselves up, twitching and shuddering and leaping for them. Sora choked back a scream.

"Oh yeah…" Kimi said thoughtfully beside him. "Forgot about that…"

It wasn't so bad. Sora was tense when the last one vanished, but no more sprouted from the ground once it was over.

Any relief he felt vanished when he went down the steps and saw the square was empty. He thought of the man he'd seen fall and vanish, disappearing into the darkness. Had that happened to everyone…? And there were more shadow things before him.

He couldn't take any more. The shop was still lit, and Sora dived for the door, hoping it wouldn't be filled with another swarm of the black things. _If you ever run into trouble, you come to me, _Cid had said. Maybe he'd still be there, and know what to do.

"Wha-" Cid said as he tumbled in, followed by Kimi.

Sora looked about tensely, but after a few seconds, when nothing happened, he let out a relieved sigh.

"Hey, there's no save point here," Kimi said. "You can't heal – Well, I guess you have to anyway. Let's go back now!"

"But-"

"What's going on?" Cid asked. "Something happen?"

"There are – there are these monsters – they – like on the island –" Sora stammered.

"What? Stay here-"

"Vincent said you're a _geezer_," Kimi said scathingly. "And he was _asleep_ for thirty years." She grabbed Sora and dragged him back through out doors.

"Who's Vincent?" Sora managed, not understanding anything that was happening.

"Hot."

Sora looked about for more monsters, but for the moment, there were none. He was looking over the empty square when he heard someone say, "They'll come at you out of nowhere."

Sora spun, heart hammering. A brown-haired man with a hairstyle resembling Riku's and a scar across his face had walked down the steps behind the shop. He was wearing black – black pants and an short-cropped unzipped black jacket with short sleeves over a white shirt. He had a thick silver chain as well, with a large pendant Sora couldn't quite make out.

"Who are you?" Sora asked. He looked dangerous. Sora clutched the metal key tightly, ready for an attack.

"And they'll keep on coming at you," the man said instead of answering, pointing with one black-gloved hand. His other arm looked like it had three red belts wrapped around it, "as long as you continue to wield the keyblade." He put his hand against his forehead and said more quietly, as if to himself, "But why? Why would it choose a kid like you?"

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Sora demanded.

"Nevermind," the man said. He started toward Sora, reaching for him. "Now, let's see that keyblade."

"What? There's no way you're getting this!" The key was the only thing that had stopped the monsters from tearing him apart.

"Alright," the man said curtly, slinging a huge grey sword Sora hadn't realized he had over his shoulder, "then have it your way."

He swung the sword forward, and then something like a fireball shot at Sora, knocking him almost off his feet with the force. Sora managed to move out of the way of the next one just in time, and ran at the stranger, hitting him as hard as he could in the midsection. While he doubled over, Sora struck again. His next hit was intercepted at the last second, and then the sword hit him across the chest, knocking him into the rock wall.

He lay there slumped against the stones. He gasped, feeling like his was unable to breathe. The man walked toward him with an unhurried pace, like a stalking tiger, readying to swing the sword again. Sora wanted to run.

_There's no turning back. I'm not afraid._

Instead he shoved himself upright and swung with all his strength before the other's sword could complete the arc. The scar-faced stranger looked shocked as he staggered back.

Sora started after him, going in for another blow, when the man's face changed from surprised to serious. Sora didn't even see the blow, but he felt it, his feet coming off the ground from the force. For a second he was airborne and saw the deadly focus in the stranger's eyes, then his head cracked agonizingly against the cobblestones and things went black.

He thought he heard a woman's voice somewhere far away. "Hey, you found it," she was saying, and he wanted to ask what it was. "Nice going, Leon."

Then the man's voice, fading out. "Looks like things are worse than we thought. A lot worse."

* * *

Leon's outfit is like one of those Lovecraftean monsters where you go insane if you try to make sense of it. He's got two red belts crossed over his hips, then a third black one crossed under those, on top of the belt actually used as belt. I think his shoes have zippers, too.


	5. Hotel Green Room

"Come on, lazy bum. Wake up."

Kairi...? Sora sat up on the bed he was in somehow, his head aching, and opened his eyes, blinking until the world resolved into a degree of blurry focus.

Kairi was standing next to the bed. "You okay?" she asked. Her voice was starting to sound odd.

"I guess..."

"Those creatures that attacked you are after the keyblade," Kairi told him as he blinked at her. How did she know about that? "But it's your heart they really want, because you wield the keyblade."

"I'm so glad you're okay, Kairi," Sora said.

"Kairi? Who are you talking about?" said Kairi. "I'm the great ninja Yuffie." She turned toward the black-clothed guy standing over against the door frame as Sora's vision started to go into focus. "I think you might have overdone it, Squall."

"That's Leon," the man said, stepping away from the wall.

That was...the guy who'd beat him up. Sora thought he should be afraid, but he was too baffled, and the ringing in his head made it hard to focus on things like that. He realized Kimi-something was there too, further off, sitting by the wall with her sword on the floor next to her and staring into space, looking bored.

The metal key was near the guy, leaning against the wall. "The keyblade..." Sora repeated, remembering the voice whispering the word back on the small island.

"Yeah," the girl who wasn't Kairi and a ninja or something said, "we had to get it away from you to shake off those creatures." Couldn't they have just _said_ that? "It turns out that's how they were tracking you."

"It was the only way to conceal your heart from them," said Squall-Leon, standing there with his arms crossed. "But it won't work for long." He didn't seem particularly bothered by this. "Still, hard to believe that you of all people are the chosen one." Squall-Leon picked up the key and swung it to the side. It glowed white, disappearing, then a similar flash of light appeared in Sora's hand, leaving the keyblade. "Well, I suppose beggars can't be choosers," he said, walking up to Sora.

Sora had enough of cryptic statements, especially from some jerk who had just beat him up and kept suggesting he wasn't good enough. "Why don't you start making sense! What's going on here?" he demanded.

"Well," girl-who-wasn't-Kairi began, "you know there are many other worlds out there, besides this one and where you lived?"

"Riku...he said that," Sora replied. "So it's really true." _O__urs is just a little piece of something much greater._

"Until recently, it might as well not have mattered if it were true or not," Squall-Leon said. "There was no way to travel between worlds. They were never connected. But when the heartless came, everything changed."

"The heartless?" repeated Sora. Kimi had been saying that.

"The ones who attacked you, you remember?" girl-who-wasn't-Kairi said.

Squall-Leon clarified somewhat, "Those without hearts." Sora remembered the hole in the center of his shadow's monster.

"The darkness in people's hearts—that's what attracts them."

"And there is darkness within every heart," the man finished gravely.

"Hey, have you heard of someone named Ansem?" girl-who-wasn't-Kairi asked.

"Ansem?" Sora repeated. "Who's that?"

"Ansem began studying the heartless when they first showed up. He recorded his findings in the report he wrote," she said.

"Oh."

"This was way cooler when it was switched up," Kimi said to no one in particular.

"But he's disappeared, and it seems the report's pages was scattered across the worlds."

"So to stop the heartless...you need to find him?" Sora asked.

"_You_ need to find him," Squall-Leon said, with the unspoken _unfortunately_ hanging in the air. "Because you're the one with the key."

"So...this is the key?" Sora said, staring at it.

"Exactly!" girl-who-wasn't-Kairi said.

"The heartless have great fear of the keyblade. That's why they'll keep coming after you no matter what." Squall-Leon stalked moodily away.

"Well, I didn't ask for this," Sora said. He hadn't wanted the sword. He'd thrown it away! All he'd wanted was to stay with his friends.

"The keyblade chooses its master," girl-who-wasn't-Kairi said, sounding cheerful. "And it chose you."

"So tough luck." Squall-Leon leaned against the wall, looking even gloomier. Sora could understand why. Here they needed someone to fix things – the keyblade wielder – and all they had was him. He didn't feel much better at the thought the keyblade thing had chosen him.

"How did all of this happen?" he asked. Everything was just so impossible. "I remember being in my room...Wait a minute! What happened to my home? My island? Riku? Kairi?"

"You know what? I really don't know," the man said, not looking at him.

Sora slumped down. What was he supposed to do...?

"Hey," the ninja girl said, obviously trying to cheer him up. "The keyblade can do all kinds of cool stuff, too. It can open locks – it's a key, you know?" She pointed to a chest sitting against the wall. "Try opening that, say."

"Is...that okay?" Sora asked. "I mean, doesn't it belong to anyone?"

"Whoever it belonged to, they don't need it any longer," the man said.

Sora shivered, then shook his head, trying to drive it from his mind. "Okay. I'll try it." He walked up to the chest. "Um..." He held out the key, not sure what to do. Then, almost reflectively, he tapped the top of the chest. He heard a lock unclick, and the top sprang open. "Whoa!"

"Great! Anything good?"

"A bunch of potions...an elixir," Sora replied.

"You should probably take those. You might need them," Squall-Leon said gravely.

Sora pocketed the items.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kimi stand and pick up her sword.

A ball of darkness formed in midair, producing the same ragdoll-knight thing he'd seen after the heart disappeared. After the heart became a heartless?

"Yuffie, go!" the man shouted. The girl – Yuffie – ran through the door behind him as he swung his sword, smashing the heartless through the room's back window, then vaulting out after it. Sora followed, clutching the keyblade.

They were in a section of Traverse Town Sora didn't recognize, an alleyway with square pools of shallow water covering much of the street. One of the two heartless appeared in the air over the water and dropped in, not seeming to notice.

"Don't bother with the small fry!" the man ordered. "Find the leader!" He took off, running through a door at the bottom of the building.

Sora began to follow, only to be startled by Kimi attacking one of the helmeted ragdoll heartless. "What are you doing? He said-"

"It doesn't matter how long you take," she said, sounding utterly and inexplicably confident. "There's no timer."

"Just because he's not timing us doesn't mean we don't need to hurry!" Sora shouted. She ignored him, smashing apart the second heartless.

"Why didn't you help me?" Sora asked suddenly. The fight had been so fast and desperate, his foe so overwhelmingly powerful, he'd had no time to wonder what Kimi was doing or even remember she was there.

"Leon wasn't going to really hurt you," Kimi said dismissively, and Sora thought of how it had felt to have Leon's sword striking his chest hard, his back crashing into the rock wall under the force. "He's supposed to collect you after the heartless show up. Besides, I didn't think he'd be so hard."

_she'd stood and picked up her sword – go fight Leon – show up when you go through Second District – I don't want to be separated, who knows what'll happen when the heartless show up?_

The key was in his hand without thinking and he swung it as he grabbed the material of her shirt in on hand and shoved her back against the wall, pinning her with the metal of the key pressing across her throat.

"You knew!" he screamed. "You knew about Riku and Kairi and everyone, you knew those monsters were coming and you didn't tell anyone!"

"I was going to!" she shouted back, sounding just as angry. Sounding annoyed, sounding frustrated, sounding utterly unrepentant. "I asked about the raft, you know! It's not my fault, I wanted you to go with Riku!"

"Riku – you know where Riku is?" Sora's grip on the key weakened.

"I _would_ if you guys had just answered right about the raft," she snapped. "So would you. We'd all be there now."

Sora let go of her, the hand with the key dropping to his side. So she didn't know either.

"You were going to tell me," he repeated.

"To go with Riku. To grab his hand fast."

So it was true, Sora thought, the key slipping from his fingers to drop to the ground by his feet. He'd failed. He could have reached Riku if he'd been a little faster, tried a little harder.

The darkness had swirled under Riku's feet like a reflection of the darkness in the sky, and he'd been afraid. He'd hesitated. Riku had held out his hand and Sora had waited too long to take it.

_There's no turning back_, Riku had said, but Sora had wanted to, for that one instant.

_I'm not afraid of the darkness_, Riku had said, but Sora was.

That was why he'd lost his friends. He hadn't been good enough. He'd hesitated, he'd been afraid, even with Riku there to tell him what he needed to do. To be.

Riku wasn't here now. But he had to catch up, to fix things. Become better even without Riku there to lead the way. He wouldn't let that happen ever again.

"What happens next?" he asked her.

"Huh?"

"What happens next?" Sora repeated.

"Um…the boss fight, I think."

"Are there going to be more monsters?"

"There are always more," she protested. "They respawn."

"Where are they going to attack next?"

"Huh? They're here everywhere now, I –"

"Like at the island," Sora said. "Where next?"

"I don't know, why are you asking?"

"We have to warn people!"

For a second, Sora thought a calculating, selfish look flashed across her face. Then it closed down, becoming guarded, blank as a wall. "I don't know."

"Yes you do!" Sora screamed, and somehow his hand was wrapped around the handle of the key again, gripping it so tightly his fingers hurt.

"I mean, I don't know any more, beyond this. I only know so far along. I knew about the Destiny Islands and a bit more and that's it."

Sora said after a second, "You said you knew what happened next."

"Yeah, but that's it!" the girl said emphatically. "And I don't even know it all that well."

He wanted to believe she was lying. That she knew where Riku and Kairi were, the way back and the way to stop the monsters and the end of it and everything.

He wanted to swing the key in his hands and hit her and hit her until she fixed everything. _Just kidding._

He felt sick. He wanted her to be lying because he was too scared of fixing it himself. But he couldn't blame everyone else. He couldn't be afraid.


	6. Third District

"Okay," Sora said. "Where is the leader we have to beat?"

"Well, before you fight you should go see Zombie Aeris in First District to get an item..." Kimi started.

"Zombie...?" Sora repeated, baffled, then shook his head. "Where do we have to go to stop the heartless leader?"

"That shows up in Third District."

"And then what?"

"I don't know!" Kimi protested, sounding more annoyed that he was still asking than anything. "I told you, that's _all_ I know. But we should really see Zombie Aeris first. Free item!"

"Do you know the way to the third district?"

"But-"

"Do you know the way or not!"

Kimi sighed deeply. "Alright, fine. Let's go."

Remembering her saying that about fighting Leon, Sora said, "Go to the third district, right?"

"Duh," she said. "Hey, follow me, I'm pretty sure I remember the way." She headed through the door.

Beyond, Leon was nowhere to be seen. They were in the open center of the second district, and heartless pulled themselves from the ground and appeared in midair.

"Come on, this way!" she shouted, dodging around the ragdoll heartless. Sora tried to follow. One of the ragdolls jumped him, kicking him in the side, but he managed to stay on his feet and keep going. They entered an alley on the other side and turned a corner. There was an ornate, colorful door at the end. Sora ran toward it, only to come to a sudden halt as more heartless appeared directly between them and the door.

Kimi tried to run by, but then jumped back to avoid the ragdoll heartless's attack. She counterattacked, smashing her sword against the side of its helmeted head, then ran sideways to avoid the shadow thing's lunge. The keyblade appeared in Sora's hand again, and he hit the nearest heartless to the side. He started to run through the gap in their line to the door, but Kimi wasn't following.

"It's clear, let's go!" he called.

"No way, we've gotta finish them off!" she shouted, hopping backwards to avoid one of the approaching shadows. "It's important!"

If she knew... Sora turned back and continued the fight, smashing apart one of the smaller heartless. One of the ragdolls kicked him into the wall and he fell, just managing to raise the keyblade in time to parry the next attack. Then he was up again, striking it back hard enough to stun, then stabbing it through the gap in its faceplate. It burst apart.

"Hey!"

Sora spun in time to see Kimi tossing something toward him. He caught it.

He felt something, or nothing, radiating into his hands, a numbing cold rather than the burning iciness of the heartless' attacks. He thought he should drop it, but it didn't seem to matter. He opened his hands to see a thin, clear shard of crystal. It looked a bit like the material of Kimi's sword.

"I think that's a lucid shard. Cool, huh?"

Lucid... This was lucidity?

Kimi had walked up to him. Now she plucked the shard from his open hands, holding it up to the sky to better examine it. Sora felt warmth sluggishly making its way back into his arms as the cold faded."Cool, huh? What was the description..._the crystallized essence of emptiness_." She pocketed it. "I was wondering about those. I guess it's just that they're hard to see. Keep an eye out for them, okay? They're pretty important."

"O-okay," Sora said.

"Alright, let's go!" She headed through the cheerfully colored door. Sora followed.

The third district was lit up everywhere but dark, as if the light couldn't spread beyond its confines. The signs glowed brightly and even the railings between the upper and lower areas were made of light, but the ground was so dark he could barely see his feet.

It was also empty of life.

Sora took a few steps in and discovered it wasn't truly empty as more monsters appeared from the air and ground. Kimi ran by them, grabbing the top of the glowing rail and jumping over it without hesitation, as if she knew where she was going. Sora ducked under the blow of a heartless and followed.

He was in the main center area. On the other side was a glowing golden fountain, lit up so bright it seemed like day. He took a few steps in.

Behind him, he heard a pair of startled shouts. Before he could turn, something heavy hit him in the back, knocking him flat against the ground and pinning him under the weight. At least he hadn't fallen atop the keyblade, which was stretched out in front of him.

"The key!" voices chorused, one on either side of him. Sora turned his head slightly, catching a glimpse of a...duck's head? He struggled, and the weights atop him moved off, one jabbing him with an elbow in the process.

"So _they've_ shown up," Kimi spat, sounding much like she had seeing Kairi. That alone made Sora feel more positive toward whatever-they-were that had just hit him. He started to look at them, but before he could get more than the confused impression of severely deformed giant animals, the ground rumbled and his attention was directed to the blocks shooting up out from the ground to block all exists, ragdoll heartless dancing bonelessly atop each.

Then the ragdoll things were on the ground, surrounding him and the others. Sora charged, swinging the keyblade and hitting them until they broke apart.

In seconds, they were gone. As strange as the new arrivals seemed, they appeared to be a good help in a fight.

The ground rumbled again, worse than before. Then the sound changed, seeming to come from above. Sora looked up into the black sky.

Something was falling.

Chunks of purple armor crashed into the ground: gauntlets, boots, a torso...As Sora watched, they leapt into the air, assembling into a headless suit of armor. There was nothing attaching them to each other, but they held themselves in the air all the same despite the gaps, as if there was some invisible thing inside.

Then the head fell. It seemed to bounce when it touched the invisible connection of the armor at the shoulders, then spun around in the neck, making it horrifyingly clear there was nothing, invisible or not, wearing the armor, finally thunking firmly into place against the top of the armor.

It was as tall as the buildings that ringed the district. Sora didn't even come past the ankle of one boot. And it was made of nothing but hard armor, no vulnerable points, no way to fight it.

By his side, Kimi raised her sword and ran toward it with a battle cry that sounded more like exhilaration than anything.

Courage.

Destruction.


	7. Party Assembled

Kimi isn't so much ignorant as aggressively seeking her own interpretation of reality. I'm not sure who told her about Walt Disney, but they really should have known better.

* * *

The armor had disintegrated, part by part, until finally the hands and feet were all gone, and it was just the head and torso, still held up impossibly as if the feet were still standing on the ground. Sora wasn't sure what could finish it off. He leaped, swinging the keyblade into the metal of the torso as many times as he could, hoping that with enough blows it would vanish as well.

It didn't, exactly. It shuddered, and then the animating force holding it together seemed to disappear, the head rolling off to fall to the ground. The shudders worsened as pure white light burst from the top of the torso. A clear heart floated out and into the sky as the light faded. For a second the torso floated there still, and then a light swirled around the remains of the body, devouring it.

The battle over, Sora turned to the newcomers he'd been fighting with.

One was...a giant white duck, like a larger version of the ducklings in the store. It had a fancy blue shirt and hat, but was pantsless. In one hand – wing? - it held a staff.

_wonder and ruin_

The other was wearing pants, as well as shoes, but dressed more casually overall, as if on the world they came from there was some set allotment that could be spread over however many items you wore. Its face reminded Sora of the doglike thing that had woken him up in the alley, and it had a small metal shield in one hand.

_to repel all_

They'd recognized the keyblade immediately, so... "So, you guys were looking for me?"

"They, too, have been seeking the wielder of the keyblade," Leon said gravely, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Yuffie was with him, nodding in agreement. They must have seen the commotion of the battle and headed for it.

"Hey, why don't you come with us?" the friendly looking one with the sheild said. "We can go to other worlds in our vessel."

"I could...find Riku and Kairi," Sora said.

"Of course!" the duck said instantly. The dog thing bent over toward him. Sora thought it said something, but it was drowned out by Kimi.

"Do we have to?" she whined to Yuffie. "I know Sora needs party members, but _them_? Can't one of you come along instead? Stealing my materia was so much less annoying than traveling with them. I'm sorry I said you were a bitch that time. And that stuff I said about your clothes. And your voice. And the klepto crack. And-"

"...Do I know you?" Yuffie said, baffled.

Leon cut in brusquely. "The only thing that matters is the keyblade and its chosen. They need to find the king and Ansem. He needs to stop the heartless. I'm at a loss as to what you have to do with any of this."

"But Disney is fascist!" Kimi whined.

Leon looked to Sora. "Go with them," he said. "Especially if you want to find your friends."

"Yeah, I guess," Sora said slowly.

"But you can't come along like that. Understand? No frowning," the duck thing said, with his wings on his hips. "No sad face. Okay?" it said, spreading its arms.

"Yeah," the other one said. "Ya gotta look funny, like us!"

Behind him, Sora heard Kimi groan in annoyance.

"This boat runs on happy faces," the giant duck explained.

"Happy?" Sora repeated despondently, looking down. How was he supposed to be happy? Still, he had to go with them if he wanted to find Riku and Kairi. Look funny...? He screwed up his face into an enormous, forced grin, and faced them.

They stared at him in total bafflement. His grin slipped and he stared back as they suddenly burst out laughing. "That's one funny face!" the larger one managed, laughing so hard he could barely get the words out.

Inexplicably, Sora felt better. "Okay, why not? I'll go with you guys."

"Donald Duck," the duck introduced, holding out his hand.

"Name's Goofy."

"I'm Sora," he said, putting his hand on top of the stack.

"All for one and one for all," Goofy said.

"Oh, and Kimi has to come too," Sora added. He couldn't just leave her.

"Another one?! We're on an important mission!" Donald shouted.

"Important _nazi_ mission," Kimi grumbled. "To kill _Jews_."

"Besides, she can't come if she doesn't smile," Goofy said. Kimi's scowl deepened.

"She smiles all the time. She just doesn't like to be told what to do. Or something. Anyway, she's my friend, and she can help fight the heartless."

Kimi produced a sound disturbingly like "IEEEEEEEEE!" and hugged him, crushing one arm against his side. "Sora called me his friend!" she announced to the world at large, as if there was anyone else in earshot who wasn't also right there to hear what he'd said. Her grin dialed back to something a bit more normal. "But, do we really have to go with _them_?"

"They're the ones with the ship," Sora said.

"Oh, right. Hey, maybe we can build our own ship later! And also, name it. The Rikora ship! Highwind is lame."

"I liked Excalibur."

"That's a _sword_, you can't name a ship after a sword." She paused. "Well, I mean, you can name a _ship_ after a sword. Excaliburshipping…hm."

"I don't think we can build a ship, anyway. We don't have anything to make one."

"We will," she assured him. "Although I never used any of it. It's like one of those things where you can't get any, until you've already got some." Then she giggled. "Excaliburshipping. Hee."

"Sora was right," Goofy said behind them in what he no doubt imagined was a quiet aside to Donald. "She does seem to smile a lot."

Leon walked toward the door between districts, pausing to strike an enormous latch on the side with his sword, unlocking the gate. "Let's head back to the first district. You can leave from there."

Leave. He was really going to travel to other worlds. O f course, he was on another world, but it wasn't really the same. He'd tumbled into this one and had been as stuck as they'd been back on the island. And...there was something about this place that struck him as incomplete and empty, not like a real world should be.

Maybe Riku was stuck on some other world, without a boat. Wouldn't he be impressed when Sora showed up! He and Kairi, Sora was sure she'd be there too. Hadn't Riku said Kairi was going with him? So they'd be fine, and all he had to do was find them. Then they could explore all the other worlds out there, like Riku'd wanted.

The door led to the open courtyard of the first district. Sora was relieved that no more monsters appeared on entering. Maybe they'd gone away now that the big armor thing was dead. There was even someone outside, a slim woman in a red dress, with long, curly brown hair.

Next to him, Kimi giggled, "Zombie Aeris."

"That's Aerith," Yuffie introduced. "She didn't get a chance to meet you, Sora, before the heartless attacked."

"Good to meet you, Keybearer," Aerith said, smiling. "I hope your path won't be too hard of one."

"Make sure you're prepared for the journey ahead of you," Leon warned. "We don't know how far the heartless have spread."

"Good luck," said Aerith.

"I hope you find your friends," Yuffie added.

Then Leon said, "Look out for each other," in a tone that was almost a command.

"Thanks, everyone," Sora said.

"The gummi ship is right outside the gate," Donald told him, gesturing toward the massive wooden gates at the other side of the courtyard.

"The what?"

"Yeah, that was my reaction too," Kimi said.

"It's our ship," Donald explained.

Goofy added, "Wait 'til you see it."

"Yes. Wait. Great idea," Kimi said flatly.

"Hold on," Donald said. He rummaged through his shirt's pockets, retrieving a red charm, "Sora, this is for you. Now you can use magic too."

"Cool," said Sora gratefully, taking it. Heat seemed to flow out from it into his hand. Then, almost reflexively, he looked to Kimi, expecting another outburst.

She stared back a second, as if she didn't understand, then replied, "No, magic's pretty lame in this game."

"Lame!" squawked Donald indignantly, who'd thus far been ignoring Kimi's comments.

"Hey, it's not my fault you suck."

_I think she's confused_ "Kimi's confused, don't pay attention," Sora said quickly. "She probably thinks you're someone else."

"I do not!"

"She's been calling Aerith Aeris for a while now," Sora continued, leaving out the zombie part. "And you heard her talking to Yuffie."

"Right, I've never even heard of materia, so I can't have stolen hers. What's materia, anyway?" Yuffie asked.

"It's – huh." Kimi paused. "It's... I think it's like crystallized mako, or regular lifestream? I think mako just in the reactors, but then Shinra makes their own? Maybe either one? I'm sure there's a difference..."

"She did the same thing when she showed up on my world. It probably has something to do with that. Kairi was from another world, and she lost all her memories when she arrived," Sora explained.

Aerith nodded. "That's possible," she allowed. "Travel between worlds is hard, especially unprotected."

"Whatever," Kimi said, wandering off.

"Here." Leon dropped a fistful of the larger munny coins into Sora's hands. "Make sure you're outfitted now. You may not be able to find good stores on the other worlds."

"Thanks!"

He looked to Donald and Goofy. "You two as well. I saw you fighting, and you could use better weapons. See if there's anything at the shop."

"Better!" sputtered the duck furiously, as Goofy said cheerfully, "Thanks for the advice!" Grabbing his friend, he headed into the item shop.

Sora looked for Kimi. She was over near one of the branching lampposts. He started to head toward her. There was something hopping on the ground nearby, he noticed. Kimi eyed it malevolently

"You know, in the original, the cricket gets squashed with a hammer," she muttered at Sora's approach. The hopping thing let out a distinctly horrified cry.

Sora hurried over to see it was a giant cricket, wearing a miniature suit and carrying a cane. "Hey!" he shouted.

"What? It's Jiminy Cricket. He's just a Jesus Christ stand-in. There are, like, five of those, minimum, per world."

"You okay?" Sora asked the cricket anxiously.

"Fine, thank you," the cricket said, hopping onto his hand. "So you're the keyblade wielder?"

"Guess so."

"You'll have to tell me what's happened before you met up with us," the cricket said. "I'm Jiminy Cricket, in charge of keeping a record of everything that happens on this journey, as well as what heartless appear. So far, it's just been shadows and soldiers."

"Soldiers?" Sora repeated. "You mean, those helmeted ones?" A second later: "Wait, you mean there are _more_?"

"Afraid so. We don't know how many, but there are at least a few others around. It may be that more develop over time, but with Ansem missing, no one knows for sure."

"Well, thanks. And, um, don't mind Kimi. She says weird stuff, that's all."

"All right," the cricket said, not sounding quite convinced.

Sora looked at Kimi. "Right? You're not going to attack him or anything?"

"Since we're already stuck with the other guys..." she said. "Who cares? Let's just get going."

"We've got to buy stuff first," Sora replied. "Leon gave me enough money to buy some potions, so-"

"Oh, right." Kimi began pulling fistfuls of coins out of her pockets.

"Where did you..."

"The heartless drop them. I just got the bigger ones, it's harder when you've actually got to pick them up. They're kind of hard to see, too." She handed some over. Sora took them, staring at the coins in confusion.

"But why would heartless have munny?"

"Because that's how it works, duh. Otherwise, you wouldn't get anything for beating them."

"That's not a reason!"

"If I may..." the cricket said, hopping onto Sora's shoulder. "Although heartless behavior is not well known under the circumstances - "

"Yeah, like Ansem spent his time on that." Kimi rolled her eyes.

"-it's possible the heartless have a tendency to pick up small items."

"I would've guessed that it's just whatever they had on them at the time. Kinda like in the Silent Hill games except you're probably actually killing people and just think they're monsters there. That was cool."

Sora and Jiminy stared at her mutely for a moment.

Then he remembered the man disintegrating in front of him. "No," Sora said. "Because the heartless showed up when the heart was eaten. Where it was. The body just...turns to nothing."

"Oh. That's stupid," Kimi said. "My way would have worked way better."

"I'm going to go buy potions."

"No, accessories!" Kimi replied, grabbing his arm and pulling him toward Cid's shop.

"What do those – do you just want one?"

"Don't be dumb. Accessories are like armor in this game."

Sora wished he had armor.

Suddenly she let go. "Actually...we can split up. And potions are boring. You go do that and I'll get stuff from Cid!" She ran up the steps into the Accessory-Jewelry store and entered.

Sora considered following but decided against it. Instead, he headed into the item store where Donald and Goofy had disappeared earlier.

It seemed they'd both taken Leon's suggestion, as Goofy's shield was now a different one, colored rather than plain metal, and despite his objections earlier, Donald's staff was different too, no longer topped by what looked like a wooden representation of a plain brown pointed hat. They were in the process of dividing items up among themselves, with Donald taking several ethers.

Sora placed the munny he'd gotten on the counter. "Potions, please," he told the tiny duckling there, now the green-shirted one.

"You ready to go?" asked Donald.

Sora nodded, pocketing the potions and the little munny left over. "Yeah. You guys?"

"Yup!" Goofy said.

They headed outside. A second later, Kimi collided with him at a full run, throwing her arms around him in another crushing hug. Sora barely managed to stay upright. "Alright!" she shouted, letting go. "This is awesome! Oh -" She paused, then handed him a red ring. "Normally I buy more, but I guess we didn't fight all that many heartless. I just got two fire rings. Protect chains plus fire resistance, way better really."

"Fire resistance...?" Sora asked skeptically, looking at the ring in his hand. Besides the color, it seemed like ordinary metal.

"Yeah, they're magic or something," Kimi said carelessly. Then she grinned. "Alright! Ship!" She took off for the gates.

"Hey!" shouted Donald, chasing after her, Goofy following behind.

He put on the ring. He still didn't feel anything much, not like the lucid shard or the fire charm Donald had given him. But then, he wasn't sure how fire resistance should feel, either. He started after the others.

Sora paused before the huge doors leading out of Traverse Town.

_The door is open. We can go to other worlds now!_

Riku was out there somewhere, and Kairi. He'd find them.

"I'm not afraid of the darkness," he said to himself, and walked through the doors.


	8. Gummi Ship

Going by the Ansem reports, gummi blocks show up well after the heartless appear. If anyone knows if there's an official explanation for that, tell me! Kimi's bit is pretty much made up on the fly.

* * *

Inside the Gummi Ship, Sora met up with two tiny rats.

"Chipmunk!" one rat protested.

"That's the type of rat you are?" Sora asked.

Kimi had burst into laughter behind him; Sora thought he should probably shut up now.

"I'm not a rat, I'm a _chipmunk_," the _chipmunk_ said angrily. "Got it?"

Sora nodded and took a seat. The Gummi Ship was set up with several seats in front of a large screen. Although the foremost of those were within reach of the instruments on the console, it appeared that the angry tiny things' equally tiny seats elsewhere were the ones that actually directed the ship. Behind the seats was a relatively wide empty space, at least in terms of a ship, which Sora generally expected to be compact.

The ship started with a slight lurching feeling. Sora watched as the world receded until it no longer filled the screen but was just a small irregular ball on one side of the screen, floating in darkness.

A simple map replaced the view, showing a simplified representation of Traverse Town and two pulsing dots to the right of it.

"These are the worlds we can pick up from here," Donald explained. "Where do you think we should start, Keybearer?"

"Um..." Sora learned forward and pointed to the upper one. "How about there?"

"Okay," reported one of the miniature pilots. "Firing engines..." The map disappeared.

Sora settled back into his seat, feeling the smooth acceleration. Finally, things were going right.

Ships filled the screen, flying straight for them. And firing. "What's happening?" he shouted.

"Yeah," Kimi commented. "I hated this part of the game too."

"It's the heartless ships-"

"-which makes no sense," Kimi interrupted.

"What else do you think they are?" Donald demanded.

"Well, duh, heartless ships. I'm just saying it's stupid. Why would heartless have ships? Does this mean gummis are tied to darkness? Oh my god, that'd actually be way cool."

"Gummis have nothing to do with the darkness!" Donald shouted. "The KING traveled in a Gummi Ship!"

"Come on, like that matters? Besides, that's practically evidence they are! The heartless use gummi ships, gummi blocks show up after the heartless, the oh-my-god-so-irritating-"king"-like-anyone-doesn't-know-who-they-mean uses gummi ships, which counts _double_. They've got to be evil. This is like deep meaning here!"

"Hey, Sora," Goofy said amicably over Kimi, apparently unbothered by either the ships attempting to shoot them down or the argument. "It'll take a while to get to the world. How about I teach you some fighting tricks in the meantime?"

"See, that's why this part sucks so much, it's because Squaresoft was making a point!" Kimi continued enthusiastically.

"Sure," Sora said, getting out of his seat and heading into the open area with Goofy. "You have experience with this kind of stuff?"

"Right!" Goofy thumped one hand against his chest proudly. "I'm Captain of the Royal Knights back at the castle, so I'm in charge of training new recruits. Practice is important!"

Sora thought of following Riku. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"We'll start with the basics! You should learn how to dodge. Your friend seems very good at this, but I saw you getting hit an awful lot, and that's no good, right? So start with the basic dodge roll, like this!"

Goofy somersaulted across the narrow space. "See?"

"That works?" Sora asked, impressed.

"Yup! Like ducking and running at the same time."

Sora had found himself doing both often in the last few battles. "Okay." He doubled over and tried to tip forward, and narrowly avoided wrenching his neck in favor of twisting his arm in the fall.

"Don't be discouraged, it's harder than it looks," Goofy told him. "You just need-"

"Practice," Sora finished. He thought of following Riku, of reaching for his hand and failing. "I'll get it."

After several tries, Sora managed to flip over enough to land on his back. Patiently, Goofy gave advice on how to fix his form, and Sora struggled to follow them. Once he almost managed a complete one, only to panic halfway through under the idea he was about to fail and collide with the floor painfully, try to catch his fall to prevent this, which led only to destroying his roll and leading to him hitting the ground hard yet again.

Before too long, Sora felt as if every inch of his body was bruised, but could manage a sloppy version of Goofy's roll. Goofy seemed satisfied by it, encouraging him to take a break.

The cricket, Jiminy, popped up, reminding Sora of the journal, his need for a complete accounting of the journey, and that, with Ansem missing and the report scattered, his record was the closest thing they had to a document of the heartless.

Sora started to talk about the night of the heartless, but Jiminy backed him up.

"Start by describing your world," he said. "I want as thorough a catalog as possible, and there isn't much known about the various worlds."

So Sora did. He talked about the islands, the sand and trees, the vast ocean that surrounded everything and the seagulls that flew above, never straying far from the land. Then he talked about the secret place, trying to remember everything he thought might be important. He watched for Jiminy's reaction as he talked about the door and the stranger, but the little cricket just wrote it all down like he had everything else Sora mentioned. He told how Kimi had appeared, and then the storm and the shadows, and the door opening, and the world coming apart, and Jiminy wrote it all down.

Sora realized they really didn't know anything about what was happening. Ansem had been the only one who knew, and with him gone all of them were desperately playing catch-up. He thought of the plain map with just Traverse Town marked off, and how it seemed like, boat or not, Traverse Town was their first new world too.

What he had experienced was their only description of this happening. They'd seemed to know what was going on at first, but they were as in the dark as he was.

He kept talking, coming to the shadow monster. A fragment of dialogue came back to him, and he said, "Kimi – she called it Darkside."

"Darkside?" Jiminy repeated. "A heartless?"

_The closer you get to light, the greater your shadow becomes_. "Yeah, it was...it looked kind of like a person, giant. Or, the top half of it did, with a head and arms and hands. And there was a huge hole through its body. It was there on the biggest piece of land left and..."

The memory of a bright heart floating out of a man's body came back to him, the way the light had glowed and darkened, the way it had released a last burst of light as it was devoured.

"It was tearing light out of the ground," Sora said quietly.

"Sounds bad," Jiminy said, writing that down. "I wish I knew what that meant."

By the time he was done, they'd made it through the gauntlet.

"Awesome," Kimi breathed, staring out the window. "Wonderland. Awesome."

Sora wasn't sure what to make of it himself. The main body of the world had a strange patterned look to it, and the colors were garish. It reminded him of the brightly lit gear-place Kimi had led him into, something almost harmless at first glance but with a sinister edge only apparent too late.

"Okay. Let's go down and explore!"

The tiny chiprats chattered agreement, and the ship dove toward the planet, spiraling closer and closer and then suddenly all the way into for a second, coming to a halt inside a tunnel.

"Huh? Why didn't we just land on the surface?" Sora asked, as they disembarked into the dirt tunnel.

"I never thought about that…" Kimi mused.

"You can't enter a world just anywhere," Goofy said. "You've gotta go along a path, yup."

"Everyone knows that!" Donald added with, Sora thought, somewhat unnecessary vehemence. "You might as well ask why a train stays on the track instead of going wherever it wants."

"Oh," Sora said.

"That doesn't make any sense at all!"

"Of course it does!" the duck sputtered. "You have to travel along the connections between worlds."

"This world is now connected," Sora whispered quietly, remembering the stranger in the secret place. _Tied to the darkness..._

"It's a _spaceship_! There's no track!" Kimi yelled.

"Come on, guys, there's something further on." Sora headed into the tunnel. It narrowed, moving from ship-sized until it was almost person-sized. It reminded him a bit of the secret place back on the island.

The appearance of a round door on the floor at the end of the tunnel made him falter. This was a bit too much like the secret place. It was brown, almost the same color as the floor. Sora approached it. Maybe it wasn't a door. It seemed to be embedded in the floor. The others caught up.

"Huh," Kimi said. "I don't-"

The door opened underneath them.

"Aah!"


	9. Wonderland

After a few seconds without hitting the ground, Sora realized something was odd. They seemed to be falling in slow motion. The walls were moving by slowly, like he was almost weightless. He wondered if he could grab onto one of them…Then he made out the ground below him. He braced for impact, but landed gently. Donald floated down beside him, and Kimi landed neatly as well. Then Goofy fell flat on the ground. Sora winced, but he got up easily.

Also, there was some sort of rabbit in a waistcoat running around. "Oh my fur and whiskers! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"

Sora shook his head, wondering if the fall had done something. It wasn't just that the rabbit was in the red waistcoat – he was already traveling with a duck in similar attire - but it was carrying a giant gold clock that looked almost as big as it was, and its eyes were the same sickly pink as the inside of its ears.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! I'm here, I should be there!" it wailed, running about apparently unencumbered by the presence of the enormous watch. "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! The queen, she'll have my head for sure!" It sped out of the room.

Which, Sora realized as he looked around, was no less bizarre than the scene he'd just watched. It had looked like a sitting room while he was falling, but having landed, he realized the furniture appeared to be part of the floor's carpet. The bricks of the wall were not actually bricks, either, and the paintings were painted, frames and all, on the wall over the brick pattern. What looked like boxes of planted daisies were also drawn on the ground. And where there weren't pictures in place of real things, the carpet pattern exposed was chaotic, looking like it'd been assembled out of triangles of all different sizes, full of skewed angles and alternating light and dark red.

A doorway led out of the room, edged with heavy maroon curtains that were tied back. Sora wasn't sure if their tangibility was more or less weird in the context of the rest of the room. The same jumbled red triangle pattern led out into the hall beyond.

"Wow…" Kimi said. "It looks even weirder than I'd thought."

Sora walked through the curtains. The walls were set at odd angles, seeming to loom over his head, a disconcerting effect that grew even more pronounced when he reached the end of the tunnel. where shelves lined the walls and a set of four severely bent candlesticks stuck out from the mounted holder a foot or two above his head. Somehow, the trinkets in the shelves, and the shelves themselves, seemed to stay flush against the wall rather than falling onto his head, despite the angle. The floor changed to being made up of white and red irregular triangle shapes. A clock was painted against the wall, its hands twisted. Sora jumped when he realized he could hear ticking. He was starting to feel unsettled.

"What are you waiting for?" Kimi asked. "Open the door!"

"Right." He walked up to the yellowish door, grabbed the knob, and opened it, only to see a smaller blue door behind. Opening that, he faced a much smaller rounded brown door that looked like it was made of wood. Confused, he tried that.

It led into a room. Sora felt relieved – he probably wouldn't have been able to fit through a door the next size down. He ducked and stepped through.

It was another painted room. This time, it was a mix of drawn and real objects. There was a bed and chairs and a sitting table, but the book was just drawn on top, and it looked like there was another table drawn on the floor of the room. A flowerpot, a jug, another clock – this one not ticking, at least – were also flat against the floor and walls. And on the other side of the room was yet another door, this one easily half as small as the last, with a huge golden knob that took up about a third of its front. The knob had an odd design that made it resemble a face of sorts.

The rabbit was nowhere to be seen. "But he must have come through here…" Sora said, confused.

"Duh," Kimi said, "he went through the door."

Sora looked at it. It was tiny, not big enough to fit his head through. "But how'd he get so small?"

The face-of-sorts design on the doorknob replied, "No, you're simply too big."

"It talks!" Sora yelped, jumping back and hitting Donald and Goofy.

The face yawned, using the keyhole as a mouth. "Must you be so loud? You woke me up!"

"Cue the most annoying thing ever," Kimi commented behind Sora as he kneeled down.

"Good morning," said Goofy cheerily.

"Good night," the door's face retorted. "I need a bit more sleep."

"Wait, what do we have to do to grow small?" Sora asked, on all fours in front of it.

"Why doz…" the doorknob muttered, drifting off.

"Whoa!" The painted table had sprung out of the ground. Sora thought again of the painted ticking clock. So the drawings were real, kind of? Or sometimes?

"Hey, let's try to break down the door!" Kimi shouted gleefully.

"What? No." Property damage was bad. It was especially bad when the property involved was able to talk.

"But you have no idea how long I've been waiting to hurt it!" Kimi wailed.

Sora tried to move in the close quarters of the room and bumped against the table, prompting a clink from its bottles shifting. He reached down and picked one up. "Drink me," he read aloud. Huh. Okay.

"Wait!" Kimi shouted, but by then he'd already swallowed a mouthful.

For the second time that day Sora saw the floor rushing up at him.

"Dammit! What kind of idiot drinks some random bottle he sees on a table?!"

"It said to drink it!" Sora defended.

"So? The door didn't even manage to tell you to do that!"

"What kind of idiot does what a talking doorknob says?" he yelled back.

Red, floating heartless materialized in the air.

"Stop fighting, we have work to do!" Donald ordered.

The red, bell-shaped heartless looked harmless. Then Sora saw fire appear above their heads. He ran at them, swinging his keyblade. The flame disappeared a few seconds before he reached it, then suddenly a fireball shot at his face. He barely had time to raise his arms before it hit, searing hot. His clothing didn't catch flame itself, but his arms throbbed, feeling swollen and the skin too tight on them. He jumped for the nearest red thing, hitting it with the keyblade and sending it flying, only for another burst of flame to hit him in the back, knocking him down with a scream. He stumbled to his feet, moving left on instinct, and saw another of the fireballs hit the floor where he'd been. He turned to face them as another came toward him.

Weeks of playing with Wakka came back to him, and he swung the keyblade at the last second, knocking it back into the heartless, then sprinting to it and jumping to strike while it was stunned. Around him, he could hear the others shouting, some letting out cries of pain. He didn't let his focus waver. He smacked the heartless downward then kept going, hitting it again and again, following it back as it tried to retreat, until it burst apart. A pink heart floated up into the sky.

He turned and looked for the next one.

When it was over, Kimi said, "Okay, let's go climb up that table," which was how he knew he could relax.

"Well, come on," she told him.

"Wait a second." Sora headed over to the sleeping doorknob. Maybe now they could get through.

The door snored on. So much for that.

Behind him, Kimi let out another battle cry. Sora turned, expecting heartless, to see her charging the door. "Don't!" he yelled as she shot by, swinging the sword. It struck and visibly rebounded, bouncing off the wood without any effect. She kept swinging, and the blade kept reverberating uselessly, even when she moved to target the sleeping doorknob directly.

She stopped and sighed. "It's not as gratifying as I'd hoped," she admitted. "Although it is better than hitting a snoring cutscene every time. That was the most frustrating thing ever."

"Let's look for another way through," Sora suggested. "Maybe we'll notice something now that we're small."

"But i – right," Kimi said. "Yeah." She started off toward the painted lily, twirling about. She looked like she was playing.

The room looked a lot different now. Before it'd been small, and, with four people, rather cramped. Now, it was huge, and what had been tiny details were major parts of the architecture. The curls at the bottom of the tablelegs were about as big as Sora was, and the low sides of the chimney's fireplace much higher than he could jump. The short chairs, almost toddler sized when he'd come in, were now hard to climb, and it took him two tries to get onto the seat. Another jump took him to the table. He stood atop the painted-on book, now longer than he was tall.

No matter where he looked, though, he didn't see another exit.

Sora was ready to give up in exasperation when Kimi shouted, "Kay, found it!"

She was over by the bed, pointing to a dark edge Sora had just thought was shadow. As he approached, he realized it was distinct from the shadow cast by the headboard. It was an opening.

He felt bad for thinking Kimi had just been fooling around earlier. She'd been trying too, and done better than any of them.

"How do we get in, though?" Goofy asked, trying and failing to squeeze through. "The bed's in the way!"

"Turn big and push the bed out of the way," Kimi replied. "Come on, let's go climb the table."

Sora turned automatically back to the table and started to walk.

_She said that before_, he thought. _When we first shrank, she said we should go climb the table immediately._

He jumped, managing to land on the seat of the chair. Donald and Kimi followed, then Goofy.

"It's lucky we're not smaller, or this would be really hard," Sora commented, jumping onto the tabletop.

"Well, yeah, they wouldn't do that. Then you'd be stuck here," Kimi replied, jumping onto the table after him. Then she made a little hop. "Hey! My footsteps sound different! I never noticed that!" She started to run in a circle, her footsteps making soft tinging sounds on the thick glass of the table. "Cool!"

The bottles were still sitting on the table were they'd been before. Then they'd been small enough to fit in one hand. Now they towered over him. Sora headed for the orange one he hadn't drunk, grabbing the edge and tilting it enough to drink a drop on the inner rim.

For a second, he was standing at normal size, still on the table, before one foot slipped off the edge and the rest of him followed.

"Okay," he said, getting back up. "So do we pull the bed out or something?"

"No, push," Kimi ordered immediately.

"Right," Donald agreed. "There's no room to pull it out. And we only need a little bit of space to get through once we're shrunk."

Sora leaned over to start pushing. The bed slid back into the wall so abruptly he almost fell again. "Whoa!" Now it was just a painted bed in profile.

"Aha!" Donald exclaimed. "A secret passage! I bet the other door is a fake. This way, only those who knew about the door can enter the world. We should have something like this, back at the castle!"

"Okay, shrink us again," Kimi said to Sora, ignoring Donald.

"Huh? Why don't you drink it?" he asked.

"Who knows what'll happen if I drink it," Kimi pointed out. "You're the party leader."

"Okay…" Sora picked up the blue bottle and took a sip. Even expecting it, the shrinking was still disorienting the second time. For him, at least; Kimi didn't seem to mind at all, immediately setting off for the uncovered passage, followed by Donald and Goofy.

From his new viewpoint, the portal reached well above his head, black and sinister. Even after moving the bed, its appearance hadn't changed, and was still too dark to see further in.

"Are you guys sure this is the right way?" he found himself asking.

"Well, duh. It wouldn't be here if we weren't supposed to use it."

"Besides, it's the only way that's open," Goofy said.

"Right…" Sora started toward it, the darkness looming further above him with each step.

_I'm not afraid of the darkness._

"I'm not afraid of the darkness," he whispered to himself, and stepped in.


	10. Red Queen's Court

This story is really meant to be somewhat cheery, since so much of my writing...isn't. So oops? In my defense, Wonderland has some really disturbing imagery. Hopefully Coliseum will be nicer.

* * *

Sora came out amid green, blocky hedges. They framed the area, leaving only another similar opening to travel through. As Sora walked up, he heard a trumpet sound.

The scene before him was confusing, as if he'd come in midway through a play. The rabbit from before had climbed up a set of wooden stairs leading to nothing but a flat platform, and standing there, it was blowing a golden trumpet.

There were giant humanoid playing cards everywhere. They had heads, feet, hands...axes. And there was a girl standing in the center of it all, on another, lower wooden platform, this one with rails on three sides, which would probably have better served the high platform with the fat rabbit. She was wearing a plain blue and white dress and had long straight blonde hair tied with a black ribbon on top of her head. He could only see her back because she was facing away.

She was facing a woman with a fat, heavyset face that narrowed as it approached the top of her head, to the point that her pinched forehead could barely support the tiny crown perched there. The woman's hair was jet black and her dress, which looked rather ornate, was a mix of red and black squares. In one hand she was holding a red stick that ended in a heart. She was sitting on what looked like a throne in high platform with low wooden sides.

The rabbit finished trumpeting and took a quick breath. "Court is now in session!" he announced.

"I'm on trial?" the girl in the center asked, baffled. She had an incredibly proper sounding voice. "But why?"

The rabbit ignored this. "Her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts, presiding!"

"This girl is the culprit," the woman – the queen? - said instantly. "There's no doubt about it," she continued, banging her fist against the wooden rail of the box, clearly getting more worked up with every word. "And the reason is...Because I say so, that's why!" she screamed, leaning half-out of the box as if she wanted to leap at the girl.

"That is so unfair!" the girl objected, her voice still prim.

"Well, have you anything to say in your defense?" the queen demanded, barely calming down. She waved the heart-scepter from side to side.

"Of course! I've done absolutely nothing wrong. You may be queen, but I'm afraid that doesn't give you the right to be so...so mean!"

Judging by the rabbit's shocked expression, this was not a good tactic to take. And indeed, seconds later the queen bellowed, "Silence! You dare defy me?"

"Hey, guys, we should help out," Sora said, feeling uneasy.

"Yeah, but the-" Donald started.

"We're outsiders," Goofy pointed out, "so wouldn't it be muddling?"

"Meddling!" Donald and Kimi snapped at the same time.

"Oh, yeah," Goofy said with a laugh, unfazed by the correction. "And that's against the rules."

"The court finds the dependent...Guilty as charged!" screamed the mad queen. Sora cringed, but it didn't stop there. "For the crimes of assault and attempted theft of my heart...off with her head!"

The cards, with their wicked axes, moved in.

"No! No!" screamed the girl. "Oh, please!"

Outsiders or not – "Hold it right there!" Sora yelled, pushing his way through the cards to the girl's side.

"Who are you!" bellowed the queen. "How dare you interfere with my court?"

Sora walked forward. "Excuse me. But we know who the real culprit is!"

"Uh-huh. It's the heartle-" Goofy stopped mid word and covered his mouth.

"Why the hell is that a secret?" Kimi demanded.

"You can't just go around talking about this kind of thing!" Donald hissed furiously, gesturing for her to shut up.

"Anyway, she's not the one you're looking for," Sora continued.

"That's nonsense," retorted the queen. "Have you any proof?" she asked loftily, her chin resting on one hand.

"Uh..."

"Hmph!" One of the cards grabbed the girl by an arm and shoved her into a what looked like a large birdcage by the side of the queen's stand.

"Bring me evidence of Alice's innocence!" ordered the queen. "Fail, and it's off with all of your heads!" Haughtily, she added, clearly expecting their efforts not to matter, "Gather as much or as little evidence as you please. Report back when you're ready."

Sora headed for Alice. She seemed to be okay.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Sora."

"I'm Goofy, and that there's Donald," Goofy said, pointing to Donald. "And she's-"

"I'm Kimimela," Kimi interrupted.

"Pleased to meet you," the girl said politely, "though I do wish it was under better circumstances. I'm sorry you got mixed up in all this nonsense."

"Why are you on trial in the first place?" Sora asked.

"I should like to know the very same thing!" Alice said indignantly. "Apparently I was guilty from the moment I took the stand!"

"That's crazy!"

"It's been like that since I got here." She smiled weakly at Sora. "I'm glad to finally meet someone else who agrees. They all seem to think this is normal."

"So, where do you come from?"

"Hm. Curious, I can't quite remember. You see, I found this mysterious rabbit hole. When I tried to peek inside, I tumbled in head over heels - And I found myself here."

"So you're from another world!" Sora said in surprise.

"That's funny. Maybe you don't need a ship, then," Goofy commented.

Donald shook his head. "I don't get it."

"What do you mean, another world?" Alice asked.

Sora was about to explain when the card standing by the cage shouted, "No talking with the prisoner!"

"He's been talking for like five minutes," Kimi said. "What, are you deaf or something?" She started to try to circle around the card. "How do you even speak without lungs?" She poked it in the chest.

"Stop that!"

"No, seriously, how? And you're just paper, how are you even upright..."

Sora decided to take advantage of the distraction. "Alice, is there anything else you can tell us?"

She shook her head. "I don't understand any of this. I asked this Cheshire Cat how to get home. And he told me to ask the queen. So I cam here to see her, and I was arrested." Alice sighed, looking pensive. "What shall I do? I should like to keep my head. Why, if my head and body became separated, nothing I eat will reach my stomach!"

That was a disturbing sentence. Sora wondered if that was what happened if you spent too much time here. All the more reason to find evidence as fast as he could.

"Kimi, stop poking the armed guard, we need to get going," Sora said.

"So, are you going to do it?" Kimi asked as they walked away.

Sora gaped at her. "I have to! That girl, Alice-"

"Oh, so you can remember _her_ name."

"-is in big trouble!" Sora continued over the interruption. "And she's not even going to have a chance to find her own evidence locked up like that. She needs our help."

"And you heard the queen! If we don't find the evidence, we'll lose our heads too!" Donald added, shuddering at the thought.

"Right!" Goofy agreed.

Kimi rolled her eyes. "Why do arpeegee characters get sidetracked so fast? Do you guys not remember your goals for longer than five seconds? I mean what's wrong with you, seriously."

"You don't want to help her?" Sora demanded.

"Huh? Oh, whatever, we should explore. I'm just saying the evidence bit is totally lame. Also, Wonderland is kind of overdone, and they always just do the queen and the cat and hatter and maybe the stoner caterpillar if you're lucky and skip the rest. No dodo love. You know, I bet Disney censored the walrus and the carpenter because it's all about how Christianity is evil. Square wouldn't do that because they're cool..."

Sora tuned her out as she continued rambling.

Although he'd promised immediately, Sora had to admit he wasn't clear on how he was going to gather evidence, or where to start looking. Back in that bizarre room? Here?

"...when they ate the oysters, see, that's sex and gluttony, so he's really saying..." Kimi was saying.

Looking it over again, Sora realized he was inside a box, with the sky meeting the tops of the walls, all painted faint blue to look like it was open, and the hedges that had seemed so carefully trimmed where, he realized, simply made of flat material and painted with a green pattern. The only bit that looked real was a large black hole on the left that resembled the passage in. Maybe there was something beyond there.

A card, a black two of spades, was standing by the passageway like guard. He might know something. Sora ventured up, trying not to look at the glinting razor edge of the black ax it held, or the way its large, wide flared dark gloves looked like a butcher's.

"Um..." Sora tried. "Have you seen anybody suspicious?"

The card stared malevolently back. "I did see someone suspicious. You."

The answer was less than promising, but Sora felt glad to have gotten through the exchange without it hefting its ax. He didn't argue but just headed past into the next place. He wondered if it'd be another box.

It was a giant forest.

In a giant box.

Sora gazed about, awed by the scale of it.

Then a floating, grinning head appeared out of nowhere.

It bobbed in the air before them with the same sort of invisible elasticity as the armor, fading in and out. Finally it disappeared completely, then reappeared over the giant tree stump to Sora's right.

A headless body materialized above, hopping on top of the head and pushing it down onto the tree stump, and then bouncing like it was a ball. It danced from one foot to another, then jumped to land on the stump itself. It leaned down, the empty gap between its shoulders facing Sora for a second, and picked up its head with its paws.

Sora thought it would set it on its shoulders, but instead the monster tossed the head into the air and angled its body underneath to catch it. He watched, sickened, as the head bounced on the shoulders, even more reminiscent of the armor but far more nauseating to see taking place with a real body.

The head finally attached. Sora readied for the battle. Instead, the thing, grinning so wide it nearly split apart its face, clasped its paws together gleefully and stared at them.

Donald recovered first. "Who are you?" he demanded with a sputter, jumping up and down with rage. Clearly, Sora realized, he hadn't been the only one bothered by the display.

The thing – a purplish red, giant, striped cat, standing on its hind legs – replied, "Who, indeed? Poor Alice. Soon to lose her head, and she's not guilty of a thing!"

Was this the Cheshire Cat Alice had mentioned, the one that got her into the whole mess? "Hey, if you know who the culprit is, tell us!"

"The Cheshire Cat has all the answers – but doesn't always tell. The answer, the culprit, the cat all lie in darkness."

More darkness. _I'm not afraid_, he reminded himself.

But the cat was fading away. "Wait!" he shouted.

It was gone, but then he heard it speak. "They've already left the forest. I won't tell what exit. There are four pieces of evidence. Three are a cinch to find. The fourth is tricky. Big reward if you find them all."

What did that mean? The heartless were gone?

"Should we trust him?" Donald asked.

The cat was visible abruptly, still grinning gleefully at them. "To trust or not to trust? I trust you'll decide!" It disappeared again. Sora waited, but it seemed to be gone for good this time.

Sora took a few steps in, still half expecting it to reappear somewhere.

Instead he heard the muffled popping sound that meant heartless were appearing.

There were more of the soldiers, and shadows, although at least those red things weren't around. "C'mon!" shouted Goofy, charging them with his shield.

Sora attacked too, focusing on one of the soldiers, hitting fast before it had a chance to retaliate and sending it flying further into the painted forest, stunned. Acting automatically, he chased it, lunging for the kill and stabbing it through the chest. It burst apart, only for more heartless to appear from the ground around it. Sora had a second of panic – were they multiplying when he killed them? He froze up.

"Hurry up!" Kimi yelled at him, smashing one of the soldiers about to jump him. It tumbled deeper in and she followed, new heartless appearing as she moved.

Sora returned to the battle.

By the time the heartless were gone, Sora and the others had moved well through the forest. They seemed to be at a dead end, with giant orange mushrooms in the corner and weird lilypad things higher up.

He saw something glitter on the ground, a tinted shard. He reached down and picked it up.

"Hey, what's that?" Kimi said.

The keyblade reappeared and his fingers locked around it. He tried to open his hand. He wanted to hit her. His arm tensed. _Kairi with her hand on Riku's arm_. He wanted to attack her, hit her until she was nothing but blood. _Don't_.

"You find something?" Kimi walked over.

Sora stood paralyzed watching her approach. Hit her kick her beat her kill her _Don't_ and Kimi, looking puzzled, pulled his hand open and grabbed the shard.

The keyblade turned to light and vanished. Sora's entire body felt shaky and weak, and he nearly fell backwards. He'd almost –

"Wonder that this is?" Kimi said, staring at it. "There were only shadows and soldiers here, and it's not a lucid shard, so I guess it's a spirit shard. Huh. Cool."

He'd almost – He'd almost – He'd almost –

Sora was shaking so hard he could barely stand.

"I wonder if there are more of these," Kimi mused, heading off.

He'd been about to kill her.


	11. Evidence

"You okay, Sora?" Goofy asked.

"I'm going to climb up there," Sora said instead. "See what – see what things look like."

He turned his back on them and jumped onto the smallest mushroom, struggling to keep his balance on the rounded top. It didn't give at all under his weight, and felt more like wood than the soft edible mushrooms he used to find back home.

From there, he jumped to the next, higher mushroom, then for the lilypad thing sticking out of the dark green patterned foliage. He misjudged it, his legs still feeling shaky, and nearly missed, catching the side of the lilypad with one hand. He flipped onto the top and found himself facing a pink box with a bright happy pattern on it that reminded him of giftwrap.

Was this the sort of evidence the Cheshire Cat had mentioned?

Sora heard scuffling behind him and turned to see Kimi was following him up. She'd also caught the edge and was now hauling herself up onto the platform, swinging one leg up first and then using that as leverage to get the rest of the way.

"Well? You've not even going to open the evidence box?" she asked, walking over toward it as Sora got out of the way.

The Cheshire Cat had said there was evidence. But he'd also told Alice to talk to the queen.

Before he could say this to Kimi, she;d bent down and pulled the top off.

Inside was a shadow heartless' antenna.

"So it was the heartless."

"I love you guys," Kimi said. "But you are total morons. If I pulled out a couple of hairs from your head and put them in a box, and someone else picked it up for a trial, what would that have to do with anything?"

"Um," Sora said. He hadn't really thought about it.

"Anyway, three more pieces of evidence left!"

"But you just said -"

"It's total nonsense but it's the quest, so we've got to do it anyway. Well actually we don't need to get more, but why not get the prize? Better odds too."

"But you mean it wasn't a heartless?"

Kimi stared at him. Then after a moment she said, as if he were an idiot: "Okay, ay, who else is running around stealing hearts? Be, does it matter if it was somebody else? It wasn't Alice, and it's not like framing the heartless for something they do _all the time_ is going to matter. Not like any of this is going to matter, either. I mean _duh_." She replaced the lid. "Anyway, you collect stuff up here and I'll set the other stuff up."

"Other stuff?" Sora repeated.

"Yeah. Hey, give me a potion."

Sora fumbled in his pocket and retrieved one of the small bottles, handing it to her.

"Kay, see you," she said, jumping off the side to the ground.

He decided to keep looking around. From above, he realized the forest was far more complex than it had first seemed. He hopped to the next flat lily, then climbed onto a section of fake leaves, ignoring what appeared to be a giant apple on his right. There was a small alcove there. Poking his head inside, he saw a small rectangular thing with rounded, rubbery looking edges. A gummi? It looked like the material the ship was made up of. Sora picked it up. It had an odd, squishy feel to it.

Then the world shuddered as if under a blow.

Scrambling out Sora saw the tree had shifted, and the apple had disappeared. He could make out part of a giant Kimi behind it. She bit into the red apple and then shrank, disappearing from sight.

Sora jumped down. "What just happened?" he demanded of normal-sized Kimi, now standing next to the giant apple..

"I moved the tree. And also pushed the stump down." She pointed to the stump where the Cheshire Cat had stood. It had turned to a painted design. Something was odd...Sora blinked a few times. The stump hadn't collapsed into the ground. The design had also gone into the side of the wall, giving the whole thing a weird, inverted look. How was that even possible...? Then he shook his head at the absurdity of the thought. He was accepting that were turning from real to drawings and drawings to real as if it were almost normal, and yet he thought it was impossible to collapse into both the ground and wall together?

Then Sora realized what she hadn't said. "But _why_ did you do that?"

She pointed up. "There's an opening in the tree, but it was turned in a direction that blocked it." Then she turned and pointed to a narrow ledge against the wall. "And there was another opening there, but no way to reach it. When I stepped on the stump, that lilypad turned real and went up high, so now we can get to there too."

"Wow, that was really...smart..." Sora said, recognition dawning. "How'd you know to do that?"

"Huh? Um, well...I figured that was how things worked, you know," said Kimi. Gathering steam, she continued, "Like, the door made the table pop up, and with that and pushing the bed in, you get through the opening. And then we were here, and there's painted stuff on the ground, so obviously we're supposed to figure the same rules apply, right? And there's always a solution to the puzzle."

"But how'd you get big?"

"Oh, one of the flowers said it'd make me big if I gave it a potion."

"Oh."

"Anyway, let's get the rest of the evidence," she said, heading back toward the mushrooms.

She'd asked for a potion.

No, he thought, shaking his head and following her. He shouldn't be suspicious of her. She'd said she didn't know. Just because he wanted her to... She'd just fought heartless. She'd probably just wanted it because she was hurt.

She hadn't used it, though, if she'd had it to give to the flower.

She'd just fought heartless. She'd probably been hurt and wanted it in case there were more attacks and she got hurt any worse.

Since when did Kimi get hurt? _Your friend seems very good at this_ Goofy had said. Since when did she even get scratched?

Not in the gearplace. And the heartless in the forest were nothing compared to those.

Then he thought, but if she'd known, she'd have gotten a potion earlier. If she knew everything that was going to happen, why would she need to ask for one just now? She'd have known what she needed from the start.

"Come on Sora," Goofy called ahead.

"Coming!" he called back, breaking into a jog to catch up. "So we have to find the three more pieces now."

"Two," Donald corrected. "Goofy and I found one."

What had the cat said? _Three are a cinch to find._ They'd already found two just lying about, but Sora hadn't seen any others, so where was the third easy one? Through the hole in the tree? That seemed like a bit of a stretch for "cinch". And then, where would the fourth be?

The whole, like the other doorways, was pitch black. One by one, Sora watched the others step through, then followed.

They were falling again. In the bizarre room they'd come from. Sora had forgotten that they were shrunk, but as they landed on the now enormous side of the fireplace, it was hard not to notice.

And there before him was another pink box. Three.

"Three!" Goofy enthused, picking it up.

"One more!" Donald added.

"Yeah, the heartless are probably back, so let's make a run for the door," Kimi said.

"Wait, what?"

She jumped off the edge and started for the opening to the queen's court. Heartless popped up.

"Hey, wait up!" Donald shouted, heading to the floor as well. Goofy and Sora followed, ducking the heartless.

They made it through with only a few hits.

"Are you ready to present the evidence?" demanded the queen upon their entrance.

"Not done yet!" Kimi shouted back, making a beeline for the painted forest. "...bitch"

"Sorry, we'll be back soon!" Sora added, following. The last thing they wanted was to make the queen decide to forget about the evidence and just sentence Alice.

"Okay, so now we should go to the other place," Kimi began.

_Three are a cinch to find. The fourth is tricky. Big reward if you find them all. _The Cheshire Cat had said that. But Alice had said the Cheshire Cat had tricked her into going to the queen.

_The answer, the culprit, the cat all lie in darkness._

What better way of preventing them from helping Alice, than by telling them there were four pieces of evidence when there were only three? Three easy ones that they'd find. And one _tricky_ one. They'd think the reason they couldn't find it was that it was the hardest, and keep trying, wasting their time. And to make sure they tried for every last one, the Cheshire Cat had told them four would get them a reward. Meanwhile, the queen could lose her temper and take it out on Alice at any moment.

"Wait," Sora said. "Let's go back."

"Huh?" Goofy said.

"We've still got one more," Donald elaborated.

"I think it's a trick," Sora said. "Alice said the Cheshire Cat is the reason she got in trouble in the first place. And you heard it talking about her getting her head cut off. It didn't sound sorry at all. So why would the help it gave us be any better? Three easy pieces, one tricky one. What if there are only three?"

"Hm..." Donald said. "That's -"

"That's stupid! Of course there are four, how else do you get the reward?" Kimi snapped.

"If it's a trick, what better way to be sure we keep trying for a fourth one that doesn't exist, than by saying we'll get a reward if we find them all? Remember what it said? '_To trust or not to trust_.' Alice trusted it, and that's what got her into this mess!"


	12. Cards

"That's not true!" Kimi burst out.

"So you know how many there are?" Sora asked.

"I – no, but there's still one more place! So of course the fourth would be there. Let's at least check it out. Um, if it's not there, then we can give up. Okay?"

Sora shook his head. "We can't keep wasting time. I'm sure there's nothing to find and we don't know how long the queen will wait. Besides, we've got three pieces of evidence, and any one of them will be enough."

"If you manage to pick it, sure," Kimi muttered blackly under her breath.

"What?"

"Fine, I said," she said.

Sora, Donald and Goofy headed back to the opening to the queen's court, Kimi trailing behind sulkily.

"Are you ready to submit your evidence?" the queen demanded again as they returned. She sounded like she'd reached the edge of her patience.

Sora nodded. "We're ready," he said, trying to sound confident. He was sure of the evidence and Alice's innocence, but he couldn't shake the knowledge that the rules of the trial were so insane he had idea of how things would really turn out.

_I'm not afraid of the darkness._ Sora felt the keyblade half-materialize in his hand for a second. They might be outsiders, but if the Queen of Hearts refused to see reason, he'd free Alice however he had to.

The queen looked annoyed by his answer, but after a beat she said, "Okay, get up on the podium."

Donald, Goofy took out their evidence boxes and handed them to Sora. He headed to the podium while the cards directed the others toward another box, apparently for spectators, over on wall by the right.

"No way, I'm staying with Sora," Kimi snapped, shoving them aside to stand behind Sora at the center podium. She threw a glare back toward the cards. "You know, in _American McGee's_ Alice, you can slice them in half and they gush blood."

Sora tried not to shudder.

"Now, show me what you've found," the queen ordered.

Sora placed the boxes on the wooden railing in front of him. The queen waved her scepter idly, and the cards moved in to take them, placing them in a row on the ground between Sora and the queen and then stepping back.

"Cards! Bring forth my evidence!"

Two cards stepped forward, each placing an identical box at either side.

"Hm," the queen said, and Sora had a sinking feeling. "Checking all five would be a waste of time. All right, then. Choose the evidence you wish to present. I'll decide who's guilty based on that evidence."

"What?" Sora burst out. "After all the trouble of collecting it?"

"Told you we should've got the fourth," Kimi muttered behind him.

"You dare object!" screamed the queen, pounding her fist against the edge of the box. "Then you will lose your head! Now choose! One box!"

Sora was about to point to one of the original boxes, when the queen banged the scepter like a gravel. The boxes spun about in air too fast to follow. By the time it stopped, Sora had lost track of which ones were his and which the queen had added.

"Told you," Kimi muttered.

"Well?!" thundered the queen.

"I -" Sora pointed toward a box on the furthest left. "That one."

"Now we shall see who the real culprit is..." she said malevolently. She pointed the scepter. "Show the culprit who fits the evidence!"

The top of the box burst open, releasing the phantasm of a soldier heartless that faded away.

The Queen of Hearts gasped. "What in the world was that?"

"There's your evidence," Sora said. "Alice is innocent."

"Rrrrrrgh..." she growled. "Silence! I'm the law here!" she screamed furiously, leaning out of the box to hang over Sora. "Article Twenty-Nine: Anyone who defies the queen is guilty!"

"That's crazy!" shouted Donald.

"SEIZE THEM AT ONCE!"

"Get Alice!" Sora shouted.

The queen cackled. The room shuddered. The wooden boxes and platforms disappeared, leaving only the top of the queen's seat, now sitting on the ground at eye level. The hedges collapsed into the ground, revealing the walls behind were painted with white rosebushes.

A tower shot up from the ground, huge gears protruding. Sora ignored this, running toward where Alice was being held as Donald and Goofy struggled to fend off the cards. Right as he was about to reach the cage, it was jerked upward.

"We're got to destroy that!" Kimi shouted, pulling on his shoulder. Sora looked back to see one of the cards had grabbed the gears of the tower and was turning it. Alice's cage moved well up, out of reach.

Sora started toward the tower, only to be intercepted by one of the black cards. It swung its ax and Sora managed to block with the keyblade, knocking it aside, then striking back.

Kimi laughed beside him. "They're just a pack of cards!" she shouted, sounding like it was the punchline of a joke.

In the background the queen was screaming, "Get them!" over and over again.

No matter how long he fought, the cards kept coming. He knocked them out one by one, saw them float limply to the ground, and moved to the next.

And they just kept coming. Sometimes he blocked their axes and sometimes he dodged, and sometimes he felt the blade cut into his side or arm.

Finally he thought, I can't win, and then, they're going to kill me, and he threw himself between the gap of two advancing cards, managing a sloppy roll as their weapons whistled over his head, and ran for the tower.

If he could break it, free Alice, maybe they could escape. Maybe the cards wouldn't follow, or wouldn't be fast enough, maybe they could make it back to the Gummi Ship and never return to this place again.

He swung the keyblade, hitting the gear protruding from one side. He thought he saw the cage lower slightly and, encouraged, kept hitting as cracks appeared and pieces broke off. Then an ax blade dug into his back.

Sora screamed and spun, raising his keyblade to block the next blow and then striking while the card was off-balance. It was stunned a second and Sora kept hitting in a frenzy until it finally collapsed. Then he remembered the tower and turned back, bashing the keyblade against the structure with growing desperation.

The first gear shattered, but Alice's cage remained in the air. So he kept hitting until chunks came from the tower structure itself.

"Get them!" screamed the queen. "Get them! Get them! Get them! Get them!"

Another card came for him, this time approaching at enough of an angle that he noticed with seconds to spare, enough to dodge the initial blow. He struck back but his own hit was glancing. He was exhausted, about to drop. The card soldier readied another blow.

"Fire!" shouted Donald as a blast of magic knocked the card away before the ax could land. It started to get up again, only to be hit by another fireball. Sora forgotten, it advanced on Donald.

Sora turned back to the half-destroyed tower. There was no time to worry about anything else.

Cracks formed across the remaining surface. It was almost finished. And he heard a card behind him.

He had to save her.

He swung the keyblade.


	13. Truth

The tower shattered.

And everything...paused.

Alice's cage had fallen to the ground, and everyone looked to it.

It had been covered in a red cloth, but this slipped away after the fall, as Sora, Donald and Goofy ran up to it. Inside, it was empty.

Alice was gone.

For a second, Sora thought, She's escaped!

Then he remembered her desperate pleading when she was sentenced, her proper voice and insistence that the queen simply couldn't do this, that it wasn't fair or right, the way the cards had shoved her into the cage without trouble, how defenseless she'd been. She wasn't the sort of person who could have escaped from a cage twenty feet up.

So...what had happened?

"She must've gotten kidnapped while we were fighting!" gasped Donald.

"You fools!" shouted the queen at the cards, who looked around blankly. Clearly, the queen and her card soldiers were at as much of a loss as he was. The battle had been forgotten. "Find the one who's behind this! I don't care how!"

The one behind it...Had the Cheshire Cat rescued her? Kimi had been so sure it was telling the truth about the boxes, and it could appear and disappear where it liked. Only...He thought of how pleased it had seemed, talking about Alice losing her head even though she was innocent. _They've already left the forest. I won't tell what exit._ It'd known and said as much, but hadn't told them anything more. Had it just been playing some sort of game? It had told them about the evidence... If it could rescue Alice at any time, then it wasn't like it had gotten her in real danger. But it had talked about her like she really was about to be killed... Or, was there somebody else? He'd already met a giant rabbit, a talking doorknob, a mad queen, a bunch of people-cards with axes and a...whatever the Cheshire Cat could be said to be. There could be all sorts of other things around too.

And they could be worse things. Heartless?

But then, the enemies that had almost killed him bare seconds ago hadn't been heartless.

Kimi was grinning and jumping about in a post-battle euphoria, but Sora felt dead on his feet. He fumbled for one of the remaining potions, cuts throbbing.

I should have just taken her, Sora thought. Grabbed her and run. He remembered Donald and Goofy objecting. So what if this was another world. It had been wrong. But instead they'd played along, wasted time, and in the end they'd had to fight their way through all the same, without even saving her.

_To trust or not to trust? I trust you'll decide!_

Trustworthy or not, at least it would be something to go on, and, friend or enemy, Sora didn't know who else to try. The Cheshire Cat would tell them something – if she'd been kidnapped or rescued...if she were alive or...Sora remembered seeing the heart burst from the man's chest. The body had disappeared into darkness, leaving nothing.

He should have just rescued her when he had the chance. If something had happened...

If something had happened then it was his fault, his failing, like with Riku and Kairi. He'd never get them back like this.

He'd wanted to, and he hadn't because he'd tried to go along with what Donald and Goofy were saying to do. But they weren't his friends, and they were looking for somebody else, anyway. It was no different than with Leon – the key had chose him, _picked a kid like him_, and they were there because they needed the key somehow. He just happened to be attached to it.

Kairi, Riku. They were the ones he was looking for, and it was their advice he should listen to.

To find them again, he had to be brave. Not be afraid, or turn back from what stood before him. He had to face the darkness and his enemies and do what was right without fear of any kind. Regardless of what other voices said.

"Come on guys," Sora said. "Let's go back to the forest and see if we can find the Cheshire Cat again."

"I thought you _didn't trust him_," Kimi said mockingly. She seemed really annoyed.

"I don't," Sora responded. "But it's the only lead we've got, and maybe it'll tell us something."

"That's a good idea," Goofy said amicably.

Donald cast a wary glance around at the cards. "Anything's better than sticking around here!"

On that note, they headed back to the painted forest.

As Sora came through the doorway, he saw that one of the huge red flowers had opened up. It...sneezed? It sneezed out something that rapidly grew in size, until a boulder larger than the whole flower, stem and all, was resting on the ground near the painted pond.

Then (of course) the Cheshire Cat appeared.

It was upsidedown, balanced on its forepaws with its grinning head resting atop them. Its head was attached this time, at least. Its bright yellow eyes seemed to almost glow, and Sora thought of the eyes of the heartless.

"Have you seen Alice?" demanded Donald immediately.

"Alice, no. Shadows, yes!" it replied, sounding inordinately cheerful.

Goofy started to say, "Where-" when Kimi burst out, "Sora didn't believe you about the evidence!"

She pointed at Sora. "Tell him you were telling the truth and I was right!" she demanded.

"Right? Truth?" repeated the Cat. "One of us is telling, one of us is truthful. Truth and shadows lie in the same way, but what of reason?"

"But where did the shadows you saw go?" Goofy asked.

"This way? That way? Does it matter?" The Cheshire Cat's grin seemed to stretch wider. "Left, right, up, down! All mixed up thanks to the shadows! Step deeper into the forest to the deserted garden. You might find the shadows in the upsidedown room! You might find the truth, too, but where?"

And it disappeared again.

"Kay," Kimi began immediately, but then, heartless appeared.

There were the shadows and soldiers, but also some huge things, twice Sora's height and several times more than that his width. They didn't look too dangerous, just fat, and so Sora was surprised that when he swung his keyblade it just reverberated off the heartless' rounded stomach.

Then the thing smacked him with one hand and he went flying, stunned.

It took him several seconds to recover enough to stagger back to his feet, in time to hear Kimi yell, "-a moron, hit them from behind!" She was, he saw, taking her own advice, running around the side of the fat heartless and dodging its strong arms to stab her sword into its unprotected back. She managed perhaps three hits before it pivoted to face her and then she skipped backwards and jumped right before it smashed into the ground, sending a shockwave that hit both Donald and Goofy.

_...good at this_, Goofy had said. Kimi was clumsy, she could barely jump, her swings were wild and weak and obviously even more inexperienced than his own.

But she moved like she knew every blow in advance.

One of the smaller twitching heartless, the shadows, advanced on him, and Sora forgot about watching Kimi and attacked his own opponents.

"Let's go through the tree first," Kimi said as soon as the battle was over.

"Go through the tree...?" Donald repeated, sounding almost dazed. He and Goofy had obviously been taken by surprise by the new heartless and hadn't known how to deal with it. They'd taken a pretty bad beating, and Donald had been unconscious for a few seconds. Sora wasn't feeling much better.

Kimi rolled her eyes. "To the Bizarre Room."

"Maybe we'll find her there," Sora said.

"Tch," Kimi replied dismissively.

"What does that mean?" he demanded. "You know where else Alice could be?"

"Dunno. Somewhere. Battles, let's focus!" She took off before Sora could say anything more.

He could just leave her.

_Just kidding._

He followed.


	14. Bizarre Room Wall

Back to this again. There's no real reason but laziness for not posting this earlier. Unfortunately, since this section of the game gets incredibly confusing from a spacial standpoint, there probably won't be another update for a while. I don't have access to the game, my notes aren't good enough to handle fiddly details, and since this is a non-cutscene portion, there aren't videos I can download to make up for the lack of game.

Bizarre Room Wall

Sora readied himself for the fall, and so he was more surprised when he stepped through the break in the tree and found himself on the flat floor.

Then, of course, heartless appeared.

They broke up by type. Sora went for the red floaters first, hating the way it felt to be hit by their fireballs and the way the attacks seemed to come out of nowhere. Goofy and Donald, he saw out of the corner of his eye, went after the shadows and soldiers, while Kimi charged past him straight for the giant heartless.

The red heartless were…odd. Unlike the other heartless they seemed to have a sense of self-preservation, floating away from him as he ran to attack. It was disconcerting, like they didn't want to be attacked, and for a second he faltered. The closest red heartless immediately bloomed with flame, and Sora ran for it, trying to get to it before the fireball was complete. He almost made it, but didn't. Instead the blast hit him point-blank in the face. He staggered back in agony, only for the attack of another one to hit him in the side. He threw himself forward blind, curling and rolling, and heard a third blast hit the ground behind him.

Sora managed to open his eyes again in a blurry squint. He could see one of the red ones before him and he ran for it again and jumped, smashing the keyblade into it.

He was fighting monsters, he thought. Heartless and mindless and soulless. He couldn't hesitate.

_There's no turning back_.

The red heartless burst apart, and Sora moved to the next one without a thought.

He wasn't sure how long the battle lasted, but it wasn't too hard, not after the horrible ax-wielding cards. When it was finished, something - a yellow bucket, it looked like - popped out of the ground.

Out of the wall, he realized belatedly, looking about. The wall was the floor. Sora had a moment of vertigo as his vision tried to reorient.

"Hey Sora!" Kimi yelled, and he spun in time to see something thrown at him.

He started to catch it reflexively, and right as his hand closed around it he realized she had thrown another glittering shard, but it was too late.

It was like grabbing a coal from the center of a furnace. Pain exploded through his hand and arm, and he screamed, dropping it.

"What? What?" Kimi ran over.

"You okay, Sora?" asked Goofy.

She saw the shard at his feet, and reached down.

"D-" Sora bit back the warning, realizing she'd picked it up once already.

"Did you get pricked or something?" Kimi asked, straightening up with it in her hand. "Don't be such a baby."

"What is that?" Sora said, staring at the red fragment held loosely between her fingers.

"Blaze shard, of course."

"No, I mean, what _is _that?"

"The crystallized essence of fire," Kimi reeled off instantly. "Heartless drop them like they drop money. I guess they find them too?"

"No," Donald said, shaking his head as he peered at it. "I don't think so. I've never seen those before. Where would they find them?" He considered. "What did you say it was again?"

"They're the crystallized essence of...stuff. It varies by heartless. Like, soldiers drop spirit shards."

"That wasn't - spirit, that can't be right," Sora blurted out.

Donald and Goofy looked at him inquiringly, but Kimi was caught up in explaining. "No, that's what they're called, and I'm sure that's what it is, since soldiers only drop one type. So that's what it is. The essence of fighting."

Lucidity was emptiness. Spirit was fighting.

"See, look -" Kimi began to say, holding it out.

"I'm not touching that!" Sora yelled, jumping back.

She looked surprised. "What's wrong?"

"Those are bad," Sora said. "They're bad things."

"Are ya sure, Sora?" Goofy asked.

"They are not! Where did you get that idea?"

They were, he knew it. The crystal shards were malevolent, pretty but _wrong_, like the false light of the heartless. Sora fumbled for an explanation. "Donald...said he'd never seen them. They aren't something found here. They're something..."

The essence of...

Kimi's eyes sparkled. "Like the gummi blocks!" she squealed in delight. "Omigod I told you so!"

Donald's expression was livid, and even Goofy's was reproachful.

"How dare you insult the king!" Donald yelled at them both, jumping up and down in rage.

"But - I - that's not - " Sora stammered.

"Hmph!" Donald turned his back and stalked off. Goofy gave Sora a long look, then followed.

"I didn't mean..." He sighed, hanging his head.

But he'd barely begun to feel sorry for himself when Kimi yelled, "Hey Sora!" again.

"What?" he snapped, peevish.

She didn't seem to notice. "Come over here!" She'd climbed up the yellow bucket thing sitting - hanging - Sora wasn't sure. "Come on, there's a whole other side! The chimney's across the middle of the wall, remember? Let's explore!"

Right. He had to focus. He needed to find Alice before something happened to her. Especially with all these heartless around...

He kept seeing that man, the man he'd never met and never would now, stumbling and falling just in front of him, bare yards from the door, and being eaten by the darkness, heart and body alike. Not even by a heartless but by nothing, by the darkness in the night air. Right in front of him, and he hadn't been able to do a thing.

Not an hour ago, Alice had been standing close enough for him to reach out and touch (Riku had been) and now she was gone. He couldn't fail again.

He climbed up after Kimi, stepped forward, and the heartless came.


	15. Progress

I imagine no one can even remember what this story is about by this point. Ah well. Might be more of this as we approach Christmas, as I should have time to replay the game yet again and get my bearings in Wonderland around then.

* * *

**Progress**

Sora was barely standing by the end. Somewhere along the line he'd fallen off the side of the raised chimney while lunging for one of his opponents, only for a dozen new heartless to appear to reinforce the reds as he hit the ground. When it was over, he slumped down against the stones of the giant chimney, breathing heavily.

Kimi offered him a potion. "You suck," she observed.

Too tired to care, he just said, "Thanks," and took it.

"I wonder what happens after you die?" she mused.

"I think I'll be dead," Sora pointed out flatly. He drank the potion, feeling the fire race through him.

"No, I mean, the save points are also healing points and reset points. Like, when you hit continue. Is it, like, game over reset? Or are we supposed to say Donald and Goofy dragged your fragile ass back to the save point? Because, I mean, you wouldn't figure Maleficent'd just let them...actually the cutscenes repeat too, so definitely you'd think, but then why are your items used up, I mean it's a game and all so some of it's just mechanics but which..."

Sora tuned her out. He was still feeling shaky, but the potion had helped. Most of the coldness faded, but some of the cuts remained, a sickening contradictory mixture of numbness and chill and ache. Even the burns of the red heartless were like that, leaving cold wounds after the first shock of heat.

"...don't see why the rules are different from those dorks, maybe it's just a player thing? But there's no way of knowing until it happens. Sora, you'd better not die and screw everything up."

"I'll try," he told her tiredly, looking around. Far to his right was the wall, or floor... He still wasn't sure how to describe it. There was another painted yellow pot or vase there, with an empty black center. He found himself wishing someone had drawn in flowers or something. When he'd been normal sized it'd been no big deal, but in his present shrunk form the darkness couldn't help but look faintly sinister, and he was already on edge from everything else.

"What now?" asked Goofy as Kimi wandered off.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. _And this wouldn't even be necessary if you'd let me rescue her!_ he thought, but he didn't say it. "Let's look around," he said instead. "The forest was constructed like a puzzle. That might be the same here too."

"That's true," Donald said. "But what are we looking for?"

Sora considered. "Maybe another doorway. Like...under that yellow pail or something."

Goofy nodded enthusiastically. "I'll go check it out," he said, heading up onto the chimney and dropping out of sight on the other side. Donald followed.

Kimi was over by the...faucet, Sora identified after a few seconds delay. It was about as high as either of them. She was whacking the faucet knob awkwardly with the flat of her sword.

Sora headed over. She was trying to turn it, he realized. "Let me try," he said. She stepped back and he swung the keyblade to strike the topmost tine.

It turned, and water came out and fell sideways.

Sora was hit by vertigo, and reached out to grab the edge of the faucet, suddenly certain gravity was about to reorient.

It didn't. The water fell anyway, hitting the painted yellow vase in the black, empty center.

And it popped up at the same moment, to grow upwards - or sideways - to accommodate the water. Seconds later, the flow stopped. Sora waited for gravity to reassert itself and the water flow back out, but the newly real vase remained still, the center still solidly black and showing no sign of the water that filled it.

"Weird..." Sora breathed, starting toward it. As he approached it remained impenetrably black, even once he was standing right in front of it. He peered inside, finding no sign of the water. Sora reached out one hand, groping to see if the water was high enough to touch.

"Stop dawdling," Kimi said behind him, and shoved.

Sora breathed in quickly, throwing his hands in front of him and bracing himself for the cold water.

He landed painfully flat on the ground, somewhere bright.

"You're a total klutz sometimes, you know that?" said Kimi.

Sora was lying atop one of the flat not-really-hedges. It felt kind of like strong cardboard. He pushed himself to his feet, turned around to face Kimi, and realized the wall behind them was just the side of the box painted sky blue, with no sign of the portal he'd gone through.

"What just happened?"

"The pot thing's a doorway," Kimi said, like this was obvious.

Sora continued to stare baffled at the unbroken blue not-sky of the box behind her. "There's no doorway there."

"Huh?" She glanced reflexively over her shoulder. "Oh. Yeah, a bunch of them are weird like that. Anyway, there should be stuff up here. I - "

"I have to find Alice!" Sora yelled at her. "We can go exploring later!"

She started to argue, but he ignored her and jumped back to the ground, breaking into a jog for the forest.

"Where were ya, Sora?" Goofy asked when he came through the tree gateway.

"Kimi shoved me through a one-way portal in the vase," Sora said. "It didn't lead anywhere. You guys?"

Donald shook his head. "Nothing under there," he said, gesturing at the popped-up yellow bucket.

Sora sighed. _Now what?_

Sora thought about their options, running through what he knew to figure out the next thing they could try. If there wasn't anything under the popped-up bucket, and the popped-up vase on the other side only led back to the hedges and the mad red queen's area, as Kimi had so enthusiastically demonstrated to him, then... Kimi, he remembered suddenly. Kimi, ignoring Cid as he talked to examine the empty furnace on the other side of the room instead. Even if she didn't actually know what would happen, she seemed to know a lot about how different worlds - or at least this one - worked. She'd been examining the furnace when there was nothing there. Maybe that was because sometimes there were things hidden in them, on some worlds.

"Let's check the fireplace," Sora said, heading for the stone chimney and climbing up. Goofy and Donald followed.

At the bottom was an empty, black area. They crouched at the edge and peered in (Sora couldn't help but listen nervously for sounds of Kimi approaching from behind).

"Do you see anything?" asked Donald.

"No...but I'm not sure what I'm looking for," he admitted. If they jumped down the gravity would trap them at the bottom. But they needed to go down to explore it. "I'll jump in," Sora decided. "If something goes wrong and I can't climb back up, you guys'll have to figure out how to get me back up, okay?"

"You can count on us!" Donald said.

"Thanks." Sora took a deep breath, steeled himself, and jumped into the darkness.

For a second he was falling down. Then there was a weird flipping feeling and he was falling up, tumbling through cupboard doors. What?

He was on the opposite wall. Above him he could just make out Donald and Goofy standing on the ceiling - or the opposite wall, because the ceiling was the wall where he...he dropped the attempt to make sense of things, feeling it was only making him more confused. The ceiling, he thought again, more firmly. Kimi had been right, sort of. Maybe this was the world she was from and so it was how she expected things to work. That'd explain a lot.

He headed back through the cupboard. There was another flip and then he was shooting past a confused Donald and Goofy. "It's the right doorway, I think," Sora said excitedly. "It brought me to the other side of the room."

"The ceiling?" Goofy asked, looking up.

"...yeah," Sora admitted. "But there's gravity over there too. Besides, it doesn't seem like we'll get hurt if we fall, remember last time?"

Donald nodded in agreement. "All right," he said. "Let's get going!"

They jumped down through the darkness, hurtled up into the light.

Shadow blossomed from the air, and the world returned to violence.

For a time everything shrunk to the space of the battle, and then it ended and his perceptions could expand again to see what was around him.

"Hey," Kimi said. Sora found himself unsure if she had appeared during the battle or shortly after it. "So you found the way over? I was starting to wonder how you'd manage to get this far without my help." She was using a weird tense again. It probably didn't mean anything, and he thought again, _Confused._ "Oh hey, bear." She headed for a low wall with a giant teddy bear lying on its back. - Sora's vision reoriented a second, though the vertigo was getting less disconcerting, and he revised his description: a teddy bear sitting on a shelf. A thick rope that would be string if he was his normal size ran between the top of the low wall/bottom of the shelf to the ground he stood on/wall of the room. He'd gotten as far as noticing that it looked like it was, from normal gravity, holding the shelf up when Kimi swung her sword, slicing the cord in half. The shelf collapsed and Sora watched the bear plummet sideways to land on one of the chairs.

"Stop destroying things!" Sora yelled.

She gave him a startled, baffled look that transitioned rapidly to self-importance. "Don't you know anything? You're supposed to do everything, if you weren't supposed to do something you wouldn't be able to. You can't progress otherwise - well, maybe you can sometimes, but you'll miss items."

"What does that have to do with progressing? Destroying stuff is the polar opposite of progress!"

Kimi rolled her eyes, pointed sideways or down, depending on how you looked at it. "There's a painted book," she informed him with put-upon patience. "Next to the chair. And above the chair is the bear, and now the bear is in the chair." So it rhymed. What did that matter?

"And...?" he prompted.

"Well, you have to, I mean probably, do something else. Like move the bear again when you're big. The whole room's a puzzle, remember?"

Sora thought again of how familiar she was with the nonsense rules of this world. Her reasoning had been so confused back on the island, strange leaps of logic that unfailingly brought her to the wrong conclusions but worked here. "Are - "

"Huh? Yeah?"

She hadn't said anything about being from here. If she'd forgotten her world, like Kairi, he didn't think he should bring that up. "Never mind," Sora said.

"Whatever."

Something occurred to him, and he said, "But why couldn't we just have gotten big again and moved the bear from the shelf?"

"Because it doesn't work that way," Kimi said with unshakable conviction. Then: "What you said about progress, that isn't true. You always have to destroy something to progress."


	16. Shadows and Light

(Yeah, so very much not the poll choice yet again. Blame my little brother)

It's really just amazing the little details that are there in the game. Throughout Wonderland I'll pause and examine something closely, and there will always be some subtle yet deliberate flaw in it.

* * *

Shadows and Light

There was a strange blank painting on the floor-wall, the color more like unmolded clay than paper, set in a green frame. Sora stared at it for a moment, confused. Another fake part of this room, he guessed.

He looked about.

There was a pile of books...or, books standing up against the wall...next to a gap in that wall, where the stonework had broken below the wooden paneling to leave a black hole. If he'd learned anything, it was that he had to keep going every time a new path opened up. He climbed up the giant, wordless spines and stepped through.

For a second he felt like he was in a shallow cave. The ceiling was close over his head, and it was eerily dim. It took him a second to understand.

He had known that the sky of the painted forest was as fake as the rest, but it had been easy to think of it as sky when he was at the ground. Close up, no such illusions remained, The ceiling right above his head above was textured dark green, turning to darker blue beyond. He could see the sharp edge where wall transitioned into what was not truly sky. In the other box, with the fat, murderous red queen and her boxy hedges, it all had been brighter, less unsettling. But whatever light illuminated the room, he was not near it, and where he stood was darker than when he'd walked along the ground.

He looked about him, unsure. He didn't see any new doorways, just the same painted room.

"What do you think, Sora?" Goofy asked.

"Maybe-" he started to say, when Kimi poked her head in.

"Why are you wasting time here?" she demanded. "I want to light up those lamp things on the wall!" She grabbed Donald by one arm and dragged him back.

Sora shook his head, looking down again. Maybe, if he stepped off the edge here - _I'm not afraid_ - he'd find the next link in the strange chain of pathways and doors, get a little closer to wherever the shadows or the cat had hidden Alice.

He walked slowly to the edge, then took a final set and fell.

He landed in a crouch, tense. But at first, he thought there was nothing there. No shadows sprouted from the ground or blossomed out of the air. The area was clear of monsters.

And something moved.

He spun. Something white and red was there. For a second, he thought it wasn't a heartless, and then he saw between the soft, harmless looking light outfit and the round, silly looking bright hat a black head with two horrible yellow eyes. It twisted and shook before him.

The key was in his hands. He swung. The blow hit and the heartless spasmed, jumping away. He felt a second of hesitation and then remembered the trick of those red heartless before, and he swung again.

And then, it was gone. Not destroyed like he'd destroyed so many other ones, the darkness breaking apart and relinquishing scraps of light, but gone like that first ragdoll heartless he'd seen, out of sight to lurk.

He looked at Goofy. "What - what do you think that was?"

Goofy shrugged. "This world seems to have a lot of strange heartless."

Jiminy Cricket hopped off his shoulder. "Maybe a weak one?" he offered. "Or an incomplete one. I haven't seen it before. It looked a bit like a mushroom, I thought."

"I think...it might be waiting somewhere for us." Sora looked around the painted forest again. Somehow the idea made him feel more unsettled than simply when the heartless had popped into existence out of thin air. At least when you finally killed them they were gone. Here...what if it was hiding, watching them? Or what if it was like a stronger one of those red floating ones, needing time to ready its attack...

He crept further along, and there it was again, around the corner. It wasn't even doing a good job of hiding, marching along in a strange legless way, with the bottom half of its body looking like it was in a sack. It stopped, then contorted, but Sora was already charging at it by then. He hit it, it shuddered, he hit it and it was gone.

Motion. Light. He turned and saw the heartless again, now over its now limply hanging head was both darkness and light together, something far greater than the flickering flames he'd seen above the little red ones, and he was scared. But it, too, twisted under the blow, the light and dark cut off, and then it vanished yet again.

He kept going through the forest.

He paused as the heartless puffed out of existence again. There was a painted gap on the painted wall. Had that been there before? It looked almost like an inkstain, spreading over the stylized giant grass drawings. He walked up to it and reached out a hand.

His fingers touched nothing. He breathed in and stepped through.

He was in a narrow, high-ceilinged corridor. The floor had a strangely unfinished feel, the dirt coloring slightly too pink. The walls were painted with tall trees, the whole thing done in dim blues and moody grays, giving the impression of a forest at dusk. They were oddly realistic in their rendering, and done in normal proportions. (But then, he thought, _But, I shrunk to come here. _So what was normal?) At the other end was a low wooden gate, already ajar, with a leafy hedge arranged in a arch above.

The room beyond was night, brightly lit by lanterns and candles.

Sora grabbed the rounded top of the gate to pull it the rest of the way open, only to find it solid. Looking at it more closely, he realized it didn't even have hinges. It was made of a single piece of carved wood, complete with depressions to make it look like the gatelike bit was made of several flat planks and twin black-painted curls on it like the frame that would those together and connect to hinges that weren't needed or there, and the post half didn't even have that much.

There was, luckily, a large enough opening in the sculpture of a gate to let him through. He stepped through into the night room.

Looking up was a flat dark blue ceiling ringed with the dark green of painted leaves. It intersected weirdly with the bright green hedge. Looking to the side he could see where it ran smack into the painting of a tree.

Yet the rest of the room looked solid. Indeed, there was none of the unsettling transitions between painted and not here. This was more mundanely odd, a diorama with painted walls and solid pieces. The stone path beneath his feet looked real, as did the soft grass around it, and in front of him was a long table surrounded in chairs. Aside from how predominantly pink it was, there was nothing too unusual about it, and beyond it were more normal bushes, three dimensional with none of the impossible boxiness of the queen's area, which looked like they'd been constructed of folded paper, while the glowing paper lanterns strung above really did look like they'd been made of it.

The only unsettling bit was the looming house attached to the left wall, which leaned drunkenly in, all warped lines and slanted angles. But it looked like a mock-up of a house, something constructed or wood and paint to look odd on purpose.

Sora approached the table, only to stop short.

It was silly, to be bothered by the painted plates and cups on the tablecloth. It was just that everything else had looked so solid, like the madness of this place had finally petered out. The table and chairs just looked so safe and normal. He shook his head.

"Wonder what this is for?" Goofy asked.

Sora pointed. "It looks like there's something written over there." The two headed toward where a sheet of thick, pinkish paper was attached to the far bushes, next to a big picture with a short man in a tall green hat and a brown-furred, red-pant-wearing bunnylike thing with yellow eyes that didn't seem at all similar to the waistcoated white rabbit before. Did this world have multiple sorts of animal people?

"A very merry unbirthday," Sora read aloud. Then the text flashed to something new. Uncertainly, he continued, reading the new words. "Sit down to get your present."

They shared a look.

"Welp, let's try it!" Goofy said.

"You think so...?" Sora said. Nothing in the room seemed threatening, admittedly. He sat down carefully in the brown wooden chair. Goofy plopped down next to him in a cushy brownish pink chair.

The painted teapot rose from the tablecloth. Something sparkled in the air, and then the chairs tipped backwards. "Woah!"

Munny showered down around them along with a faint scent of clover and grass as Sora tried to catch himself, only for the chair to flip rightside up again.

"Hey look!" Goofy said, looking unbothered by being unseated. He held up a bottle. "This is an elixir! Donald will be glad to have this."

"Good," Sora said. He was collecting the scattered pieces of munny. He felt inexplicably better. "What do you think happens if we try again?"

"Hm..." Goofy sat down in the same chair, as did Sora. Nothing happened.

"I guess that's all."

"What if we try different chairs?"

"That doesn't make any sense," Sora said.

"So?"

He made a good point. They shifted down, with Goofy plunking himself into the big, fuzzy pink chair at the head of the table.

A pink cake grew out of the table...and exploded. They were both thrown back, and suddenly red heartless were everywhere.

"Hey!" Kimi's voice. Sora looked up to see her and Donald perched in the ungainly overhanging porch of the crooked house. "Sat in the wrong place? Honestly, you're just hopeless without me, aren't you?"

A fireball struck him in the back, and Sora was knocked to his knees. He scrambled back, charging at it and swinging. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kimi and Donald leaping into the fray, but he couldn't afford to be distracted by them again.

When the heartless were dispatched, Kimi insisted they sit down at the table again.

"No way," Sora said.

Goofy nodded. "Greedy people get their just deserts," he said.

Kimi stared in open-mouthed - Sora wasn't sure if it was outrage or shock. "Oh my god seriously?" she managed after a second. "No. It's not some prissy morality tale. It's just luck. Trust Disney to try to staple a broken Aesop in. Look -" And she sat down.

The flat drawing of a covered plate rose up. The cover tipped to the side. The chair flipped her over, prompting a yelp of surprise, as a bottle dropped out of the sky to land on the table.

"Ow..." she complained, picking herself back up as Donald snagged the bottle. "Why did that happen?"

Sora told her, "It happened both times we sat down, too."

"Really?" Kimi seemed bemused but not surprised. "Whatever. Someone else sits next time."

"And risk something worse happening?" Sora demanded. "It's not worth it. Besides," and he felt a bit guilty himself to realize he'd been thinking of other things, "we've got to find Alice, remember? Did you see anything new?"

"We just found some odds and ends," Donald reported. "And Kimi found another doorway in that bizarre room. She moved the teddy bear from one chair to another, and somehow that made the clock become real and movable. That's how we got here. But no sign of Alice or the Cat."

"If no one's going to sit down, we might as well get going," Kimi said. She pointed at the warped door at the base of the crooked house. "Onward!" The door slid open with a creak, and she was through before any of them could react.

It was quiet at first except for a soft ticking that seemed to come from nowhere.. The Cheshire Cat appeared on the ledge above the door, and Sora realized that he sounded similar to the way the heartless did when they popped out of shadows. Sora looked up at him as he lounged. Far above him was the floor "They're hiding somewhere," it told them. "And the momeraths outgrabe. Want to find the shadows? Try turning on the light." It vanished again.

Red heartless appeared. Sora fought. Helmeted ragdoll heartless appeared. Sora fought. Giant heartless appeared, and Sora fought. And then it was over, and he found himself thinking that it wasn't quite so hard any more.

When they were gone, he looked about. There were a pair of lights set into the floor – the wall – whatever it was. _Turn on the light?_ Sora jumped up, grabbing one edge and climbing up onto the scalloped platform one was attached to.

"Hey, help me up," called Kimi behind him. She was dangling, and he bent and grabbed her other hand, pulling her up next to him. "So," she said, grinning at him for some inscrutable reason, "figured it out?"

"You mean, that we should try to light these?" Sora said, gesturing at the massive gas lamp fixture. "That seems to be what it said."

He was about to call Donald, but then he remembered the duck-person had said he'd given Sora magic too. He'd been busy on the gummi ship during the flight over to the world, first with Goofy and then Jiminy, so he'd forgotten to try it or even that he'd had it. Could he really use it? He thought of the warm feeling in his hand, focused...

The tip of the keyblade ignited with a soft flumping sound. Sora nearly dropped it in surprise, and the fire vanished again.

"Spaz," Kimi said, though without venom. "Well, come on."

Sora focused again, the flame reappearing, and the light went on.

There was an odd noise and he looked up to see, far far above, a painted vase on the floor raising itself into true existence.

The sound of monsters, and Sora saw that the Cat had appeared yet again on the other light fixture, lying on all fours with his thick tail waving idly. "It's too dim," he said with an air of critique. "Make it brighter."

_because the closer you get to the light the darker your shadow becomes_

"One more lamp that you need to light," it said with a mad smugness, and disappeared again.

Sora stood frozen, trying to decide. Something felt wrong - and that line from his dream, was this really the right thing to do? The right way to go? The right person to trust?

"Come on Sora, what's taking you so long to move?" Kimi demanded, and shoved him off the platform toward the other one.

"Wait a sec," Sora protested. "You guys, what do you think will happen if we light both? Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"It said we'd have to to find the shadows," Donald said.

"But we've been fighting shadows. We fought them when we came here." Sora glanced up to the floor again, where the flower pot remained impossibly suspended. "All lighting that did was make that plant appear. What does it mean to find the shadows? Why light?"

"To make the boss heartless appear!" Kimi said. "The big guy, the one in charge. It makes sense, right? Brighter light, bigger shadow, so light these and we can go beat him up once and for all."

"You think so?"

"I _know_ so," Kimi said. "Get going. Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"


	17. Trickmaster

Sora lit the second lamp.

Nothing changed in the room that he could see, but an instant later the Cheshire Cat had returned, in an identical position but now on the platform Sora had been standing on before, rather than the one he was on now.

"All the lights are on," it purred. "You'll see the shadows soon." It was grinning widely. "They'll arise in this room, but somewhere else. The shadows might go after that doorknob, too." And it was gone.

"So...where now?" Goofy asked.

"I guess a different area of this room," Sora said, glancing at Kimi for confirmation. She only shrugged.

"Down there!" Donald said suddenly, pointing up all the way to the floor. "The doorknob we talked to must be what that cat means. And that's where the shadows first appeared too."

"That's good reasoning..." Kimi looked almost meditative, as if there was something profound in what Donald had said. Then she shook her head suddenly and said, "Well, it's not because the shadows show up there first, it's because it's the only way to have the big fight happen when we're small like this. Only reasonable. It'd be a huge disappointment otherwise, y'know?"

More dream logic, Sora thought. But that probably meant Donald was right. This place seemed insane at first glance, but there were common threads running across it, and you could reason your way through if you used something other than reason.

He wondered if this was true about all the other worlds, if each had their own kind of sense that looked mad from any other standpoint. He opened his mouth to ask, and then he remembered they didn't know any more than he did. Instead he said, "Then let's go. Let's rescue Alice."

They made their way back to the painted forest. Sora watched carefully, but that white heartless seemed to have left for good. Nothing arose to challenge them.

When they entered the Queen's box-hedge room, the card guarding the doorway must have seen something he disliked in their slower, cautious walk, because he said curtly, "Keep looking. She can't have gone far." The Queen remained on her judge's throne, staring out in a way that might have seen them or might not have. "Hurry, or you, too, will incur the Queen's wrath."

Sora didn't reply. He only had to find Alice. The ship was just beyond the giant room. When he found her, all the rest of this wouldn't matter. She could go with them, back to her own world or Traverse or wherever, and never have to get anywhere near here again.

They walked through the black doorway beneath the hedges, into the giant room. The Cheshire Cat awaited them, or perhaps it had just appeared. It lounged on the table with the two bottles.

"You'll have a better view from higher up," it advised, tail waving idly.

He hesitated, but what else did he have to try? He thought about mad dream logic again, about things really _being_ different if you looked at them differently, and headed toward the chair. Kimi, for whatever reason, was wandering off to the side, toward the now three dimensional flower in its pot.

Well, there was no reason to think they all had to be there to get a good look at things. He grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself up. The Cheshire Cat, he was surprised to note, was still there, instead of taking this as another opportunity to vanish. He walked to it, and it sprang up to dance on two legs, radiating a mad sort of delight. "The shadows should be here soon," it said. It waved its head about, then raised one paw with slightly too long fingers to point upward. "Are you prepared for the worst? If not, too bad!"

A - thing fell from the ceiling, twisted black legs - or no, arms - coiling like springs and then shooting it upward again to spin through the air over their heads, heavy feet smashing into the ground as it landed again with a sound like metal on stone. It had a long narrow cylinder of a head, alternating red and black with bands of gold and little vicious squiggled faces, then a round little torso of black and red. Its legs...it had four bound together into two. The top halves were red tubes. Two came from each hip and jeweled knees connected each set to two black tubes that came from its feet, wicked looking metal things, iron pendulums half flattened into shoes. Its legs bent at the joints, one forward like a real knee, the other reversed. Its paper arms uncurled. Two purple - thin batons? Or thick matchsticks? - were held in its impossibly thin needle-like fingers. It began to toss them from hand to hand.

"Fire!" Donald screamed, shooting flame at it. The thing in its left hand ignited.

"Idiot!" Kimi screeched from the floor.

Sora glanced toward her for a second, but she was heading over, grabbing at the seat of the chair and pulling herself up. He didn't have time to watch her, because the thing was advancing, twirling its flaming stick. He just managed to jump out of the way when it swung the other, unlit one across the table edge. He landed badly, stumbled but regained his balance, then took a step forward and jumped at it, swinging his sword into its stack of faces. It reeled back, then hit him with one flaming baton. He hit the cold tile hard and rolled, managing to regain his feet after a few feet.

Goofy was blocking its blows with his shield as Donald circled around. Kimi had made it onto the table, where she stood watching with her sword held with the point resting on the surface. Donald sent another small fireball into it from the side, and the heartless turned ponderously to face him. Kimi jumped at its unprotected back, swinging her sword.

It...collapsed, four knees jutting out in all directions, stack of heads sagging. For a second Sora thought it was beaten, but it was still solid and upright. Donald and Goofy had attacked immediately. Sora ran over to help, but at the first swing its towering heads wobbled, like it was shaking them clear, and its monstrous legs raised it up again. His next blow rebounded off them, seeming not to bother the creature in the slightest, and the next. It was like striking rubber-covered steel. Sora retreated backward, not wanting to be within kicking range of its metal feet, but, distracted by that, he forgot to keep an eye on its upper body. Fire filled his vision as something massive smashed into his side, sending him flying. He tumbled across the floor.

Donald was shouting, sending spell after spell into the monster. Sora got up gingerly, his whole body throbbing. The shock of heat was fading as the seconds passed, but the ache across his side grew stronger with each heartbeat. He could already feel the whole area stiffening up.

He realized Kimi was nearby, rather than taking part in the attack. She had an irritated expression and was bent, rubbing the side of her leg. It was a familiar posture he'd seen hundreds of times back home. She must have fallen on her side after jumping off the table.

"Do you know how to beat this thing?" he called.

She looked over to him, straightening up. "Huh? Oh, it'll happen eventually." She walked over with the slightly awkward gait of someone who doesn't want to bend their leg at the hip. The heartless seemed to have forgotten all of them. It began to march across the room. Donald and Goofy had retreated as well and were watching it with similar confusion.

"But - it collapsed, but then it got back up," Sora said. The heartless was standing to one side of the fireplace, its arms over the bricks. He heard the whoosh of flame.

"Yeah, it'll do -" Kimi stopped. "Hey, we should probably get the table between us and it." She grabbed one arm and tugged as the heartless turned back to them, both batons wrapped in flame. "Come on!" She yanked him to the side as it swung one, sending a fireball flying at where he'd been standing a moment before. Sora quickly stepped behind the table leg, and heard another one fizzle against the other side.

His eyes caught on the chair. "Should we get back on the table? Its heads seem like a weak point." He looked to her for confirmation, but she only made a face and rubbed her leg again.

"_I'm_ not doing that again," she said. "You can if you want. Maybe you have to do it that way. I don't think fire magic works. _And it's not like you have any other kinds of magic_," she added bitterly, glaring at him.

Sora looked at her in bafflement. He opened his mouth. Behind him, he heard Goofy yelp in pain. He shut it again and climbed onto the chair, ignoring the burst of fresh pain in his side as he pulled himself up, then onto the table. The heartless was at the other end, seemingly unaware of him. He ran and jumped, smacking the stack of heads and then jamming the blade between the neck and shoulder.

It shuddered, shaking him loose as it sagged again. He landed well, both feet hitting at the same time and immediately jumped again, striking it in the chest. Donald sent another ball of fire into its back and as he landed again Goofy leaped and smashed his shield into its body with a sound somewhere between a gong and a punch.

Then it twitched and began to straighten again, legs propelling it upward. Sora retreated, heading back for the table. He was partway there when he heard Donald scream.

He spun. Donald was crumpled on the floor. Goofy was blocking the heartless' blows with his shield, but he was pushed backward with each strike.

"Hey!" Sora yelled, running out from under the table and waving his arms. "Hey you stupid monster!" It ignored him. He had to get it away from them somehow... He thought of warmth gathering in his hand. The tip of the keyblade ignited. He held it up and then pushed. A ball of flame shot into the heartless' side. It paused, and then it turned to him. It stepped away from Donald.

_Fire. Fire fire fire fire,_ Sora thought, sending another burst into it, and then another, until the sense of fire wouldn't come and there was only an empty space. He kept backing up as it advanced. His back hit the wall and he was so startled he jumped a half step forward before he even realized what he'd touched. He tried to scramble away but again the heartless' twisted paper arms had longer reach than he thought and one sent him flying to smack into a leg of the giant chair. It loomed over him as he tried to get to his feet, his head spinning. There was shouting - Goofy, he thought, and maybe Donald, or was it Kimi?

He'd been wrong about the emptiness. There was still a spark of warmth. He focused on that as the heartless raised one arm to strike him and sent another fireball into it as Goofy, yelling, smashed into it shield-first.

It slumped down again - then to Sora's horror immediately straightened again to its full height.

Then it fell backwards with a resounding crash, papery arms fluttering slowly down after it. As Sora watched light burst from its chest and a translucent heart floated upward, dissolving as it went. Within seconds the light had spread and whole body was consumed.

Was it finally over? Goofy helped Sora to his feet. He looked around for the others. Donald was a way back, but he was standing now, and didn't seem too badly injured. Kimi was nearby.

The doorknob began grumbling, long, muttered words that were nearly unintelligible. Something about not getting sleep. It yawned widely, and something - a keyhole - glittered within the darkness of its mouth.

The keyblade in his hands began to shake. Light collected around the tip, which started to raise upward. Sora tightened his grip, not sure what was happening. Then a beam shot outward, straight into the glittering bit in the darkness of the doorknob's mouth. And then with a click both lights were gone, the force lifted, and the doorknob's mouth closed.

He stared.

"What was that?" asked Donald.

"You hear that?" Sora said. "Sounded like something closed."

And then something tumbled out from the door. It gleamed. Had that been what...?

Goofy headed for it. "This gummi ain't like the others," he said, picking it up. "No, sir."

"I'll hold on to it," Donald said, grabbing it out of Goofy's hand and casting a wary glance at Kimi.

Sora reflexively looked for Kimi, to see if she would start a fight over it, but she seemed disinterested, staring absently off into space somewhere around the vicinity of the door.

"Splendid," crooned the Cat. Sora spun. "You're quite the hero. But there's something you're missing."

His hand tightened on the keyblade. Would the Cheshire Cat finally show itself as an enemy? Was the fighting not done? "What?" he demanded.

"I won't tell," it said. "But I'll give you something."

A brisk cold flowed up his arms, the chill moving through him, waking him up and soothing his burns. It wasn't the numbing emptiness of the heartless' claws...just as the warmth Donald had handed him had been different from the searing pain of the shard. A spell?

"If you're looking for Alice," the Cheshire Cat said, "she's not here."

But he'd...

"She's gone! Off with the shadows, into darkness."

And it was gone.

"No..." This couldn't - "No..." He'd done what it said - He felt a mounting hysteria. He'd stood so close to her he could have reached out and taken her hand. _Into darkness._

"Let's go back to our gummi ship," Donald said. "We might find her on another world."

"We've got to find a connecting point, to return to the ship," Goofy said.

Kimi jumped. "Wait - connecting point?"

"You know," Donald said peevishly, "a place where the fabric of the world is weak, and it connects to the outside."

"A pathway back out." Goofy nodded.

"A save point!" Kimi said.

"Is that what you call them?" Goofy asked. "What a odd name."

* * *

I've had this chapter written for a while except for the Trickmaster fight, which I finally sat down and wrote.

I'm not quite sure how I should deal with save points. I'm torn between having all the points be ways back to the ship, or for there only to be the one they see on the way in so they're always entering/exiting at the same point.


End file.
